... dissuaded him, saying that Sri Aurobindo's coming to Pondicherry was a closely guarded secret and that he would like to live in strict solitude in order to avoid harassment by the agents of the British Government. So, the idea of a public reception was abandoned, and only Moni and Srinivasachari went to the port to receive Sri Aurobindo.¹ Sri Aurobindo, Bejoy and Moni were lodged on the second floor... Page 349 floor every day for his bath. They stayed there for about six months as Shankar Chetty's guests. It was a completely secluded life; and, though the agents of the British Government must have been about, prowling and prying, they could discover no clue to their whereabouts. During the first three months, Bejoy and Moni had to keep to their room day and night. Afterwards... But as the Police failed to trace him, the printer was convicted, sentenced to six months' imprisonment and acquitted on appeal. We reproduce below some of the secret documents of the British Government which provide more amusing fiction and fabrication than facts about Sri Aurobindo's activities and whereabouts. Puck plays pranks even in the forbidden chambers of solemn officialdom and criminally ...
... Civil Disobedience Movement on a small scale; it was restricted to an individual and not to a mass Satyagraha. In 1941, the campaign picked up some momentum but met with very little success. The British Government arrested and convicted over 20,000 persons. By the end of 1941, the war took a very serious turn. The Japanese after the attack on Pearl Harbour, joined the Axis powers against Britain... have it". The Hindu Mahasabha challenged the threat and like the Congress demanded full independence, but unlike the Congress it was ready to cooperate with the British in the war effort. The British government, partly realizing the inevitability of India's future independence and partly under American pressure to secure her support during the war, sent Sir Stafford Cripps to Page 51 ... Stafford Cripps on Mar. 30, 1942: "First of all you will want to know what object we had in view. Well, we wanted to make it quite clear and beyond any possibility of doubt or question that the British Government and the British people desire the Indian peoples to have full self-government, with a Constitution as free in every respect as our own in Great Britain or as of any of the great Dominion members ...
... millions. The Bengalis as a race, having received a better and more widely-spread education on Western lines than the people of any other province, occupied most of the high posts under the British Government, and naturally dominated the political as well as the educational and cultural scenes in the country. After the severance of Assam, a few more attempts were made by the Government to... in East Bengal, and the separation scheme has been universally and unanimously condemned." The real reasons for the Partition were, however, quite different. They were, first, that the British Government had been for some time feeling more and more uneasy and alarmed at the steady growth of the nationalist spirit in Bengal, and the conversion of the National Congress from a close preserve... Eastern Bengal and Assam." The new province, it was also declared, would be under a Lt. Governor, and function as a separate unit from the 16th October, 1905. Thus, at one fell blow, the British Government wanted to kill the "seditious" patriotism of the Bengali race, and disrupt Hindu-Moslem unity. The partition of Bengal became "a settled fact". It threw down the glove to the nationalist spirit ...
... it has acquired today. Anyway, now at least we had found a place to sleep, so after thanking Mr. Cotton we went to his club. Later, it was this same Mr. Cotton who wrote on my behalf to the British government so that I might be selected for the I.C.S. The club was situated in one of the most fashionable parts of London - South Kensington - where one found all the big offices and the great homes of... old?" "That's not too young. And I didn't think the I.C.S. was all that difficult. Indian boys found it difficult because there were so many gaps in their education. You see, the British Page 62 government did not intend to give us a really fine and strong grounding in education; all they wanted was to produce 'a nation of clerks' as our leaders called it. Otherwise the intellectual ... have been founded on mere chance and my later life repeatedly proved me right. But the work I was given by the Maharaja was fundamentally the same as the one I might have been offered by the British government - that is it was a civilian's post all right. Only I had decided never to work for our colonial masters, and to that decision I stuck. "On the given date, I left England. I embarked on the ...
... the Page 189 Government of India Act, 1935. I am sure that we have made no small contribution towards persuading the British Government to abandon the scheme of central federal government. In creating that mind in the British Government, the Muslim League, I have no doubt, played no small part. You know that the British people are very obdurate people. They are also very con... of India's future constitution must be examined de movo and the Act of 1935 must go once for all. We do not believe in asking the British Government to make declaration. These declaration are really of no use. You cannot possibly succeed in getting the British Government out of this country by asking them to make declaration. However, the Congress asked the Viceroy to make a declaration. The Viceroy... leader to another great Hindu leader 15 years ago. Now, I should like to put before you my views on the subject as it strikes me taking everything into consideration at the present moment. The British Government and Parliament, and more so the British nation, have been for many decades past brought up and nurtured with settled notions about India's future, based on developments in their own country which ...
... the Alipore Bomb Case. A year later he was released. In 1910 he settled in Pondicherry and cut off all direct connection with the freedom movement, though he continued to be regarded by the British government as a dangerous revolutionary. For a while he remained in indirect contact with the movement through Motilal Roy of Chandernagore. To Bipin Chandra Pal. 1906 . Bipin (also spelled "Bepin")... acknowledgement of a small donation to the National College Fund. Sri Aurobindo's note was put in as evidence in the Alipore Bomb Trial (1908 - 9). The original has been lost. It was reproduced in a British government report on the trial, which was later reprinted in the collection Terrorism in Bengal , volume 4 (Calcutta, 1995), p. 682. To Hemendra Prasad Ghose. 19 April 1907 . Hemendra Prasad... of Sri Aurobindo's closest friends in Pondicherry. Note on a Forged Document. April 1912 . Early in 1912 a Pondicherry resident named Mayuresan, who was acting as an informer to the British Government, planted some forged documents in the well of the house of V. V. S. Aiyar, a Tamil revolutionary who was living in the French colony. Mayuresan intended the documents to be discovered by the ...
... is common sense. If after Dominion Status you can secede from the British Government at any time and thus get without fighting what you want, what is the sense of fighting now? Only the defence question and British interests will remain. After a few years, when these problems have been solved, you can get rid of the British Government. NIRODBARAN: As Ireland did? PURANI: Yes. See how England can't... That is due to people—the Southerners—who didn't want to join the British Empire. Otherwise the British Government would have been willing to concede full Dominion Status to Ireland as one whole. In India, if Jinnah had had the good sense to come to an agreement with the Congress, the British Government would have granted Dominion Status. The real problem then would have been after Dominion Status ...
... Civil Disobedience Movement on a small scale; it was restricted to an individual and not to a mass Satyagraha. In 1941, the campaign picked up some momentum but met with very little success. The British Government arrested and convicted over 20,000 persons. By the end of 1941, the War took a very serious turn. The Japanese, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, joined the Axis powers against Britain... have it.' The Hindu Mahasabha challenged the threat and like the Congress demanded full independence, but unlike the Congress it was ready to co-operate with the British in the war effort. The British government, partly realising the inevitability of India's future independence and partly under American pressure to secure her support during the war, sent Sir Stafford Cripps to India in March 1942, with... Mar. 30, 1942: First of all you will want to know what object we had in view. Well, we wanted to make it quite clear and beyond any possibility of doubt or question that the British Government and the British people desire the Indian peoples to have full self-government, with a Constitution as free in every respect as our own in Great Britain or as of any of the great Dominion members ...
... Rishi describes Indra as sending out these spasa to trace the movements of his enemies, the forces of evil that clustered round the god. So, the Vedic gods had their spies, just as the modern British government had theirs, though of course there was bound to be a certain difference. These government spies tried to collect information as to who came to our houses, who were the people who met us, what... advisable to leave here, for the intentions of the Page 412 British authorities were not above suspicion. Abdul Karim too was sounded as to their intentions. He said the British Government meant us no harm, for he was well aware that we were saintly people engaged in sadhana alone, and so on. But Sri Aurobindo had serious doubts. Bejoy however was a head-strong man. He got eager... identity. Concealed behind the thick cloak of Sannyasa was our old comrade Amarendra, Amarendranath Chatterji, the noted terrorist Page 415 leader for whose capture the British Government had been moving heaven and earth, that is, the worlds of the dead and the living, and also raising hell in the world of the underground. Perhaps they had set a price on his head too. And here ...
... they would put up with a just British government they could not reply. India must want freedom because of herself, because of her own Spirit. I would very much like India to find her own Swaraj and then, like Ireland, to work out her salvation even with violence – preferably without violence. Our basis must be broader than that of mere opposition to the British government. All the time our eyes are... difficult to concentrate on it so long as India is not free." "Perhaps it may not be necessary to resort to revolutionary activity to free India," he said. "But without that how is the British Government to go from India?" I asked him. "That is another question; but if India can be free without revolutionary activity, whyshould you execute the plan? It is better to concentrate on yoga – the... you have the absolute faith and make the right choice. If you make the wrong choice I cannot protect you. You must know that this is not a simple affair at all. It is not a revolt against the British Government which any one can easily do. It is, in fact, a revolt against the whole universal Nature and so one must think deeply before enrolling oneself with me. There will be tremendous forces that ...
... serialised in the Bande Mataram. June 2 First issue of the weekly edition of the Bande Mataram. June 8 A warning is issued to the editor of the Bande Mataram by the British government. June 14 Leaves Calcutta for Khulna to found a national school. June 30 - October 13 Publication of Perseus the Deliverer, a drama, in the weekly Bande Mataram. July 30... Office). May 2 Arrested as implicated in the terrorist activities of a group led by his brother Barindra.Taken to the 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... Speech at Kumartuli. July 18 Speech at College Square, Calcutta. July 31 "An Open Letter to My Countrymen" published by Sri Aurobindo in the Karmayogin following resumed efforts of the British government to have him deported. August 23 First issue of the Dharma, a Bengali weekly directed and mostly written by Sri Aurobindo. September Leader of the Nationalists at the Bengal Provincial ...
... y but also Madras, Nagapattam, etc., was rich and influential. Nand Gopal was taking a prominent part in the politics of French India. He seems to have agreed to participate in a plan of the British government agents to carry Sri Aurobindo out of the limits of French India with the help of goondas, so that Sri Aurobindo might be arrested by the British authorities and held up on some fabricated charge... were already there in 1910. Then Nagaswamy Aiyar came, and from Bengal Sri Aurobindo and four other persons. V. V. S. Aiyar being implicated in revolutionary activity came in the year 1912. The British government, in consequence, increased the number of its secret agents, C. I. D. men, in Pondicherry. In July 1912 some secret service men threw a tin containing seditious literature into the well of... the new house and all those who had come passed one by one in front of him. Some sweets were distributed. Once it seemed likely that the French government might yield to the pressure of the British government in the matter of handing over the political refugees. This was a very crucial time for all of them. Subramanya Bharati got very excited and disturbed over the news as was usual with him. One ...
... serialised in the Bande Mataram. June 1 First issue of the weekly edition of the Bande Mataram. June 8 A warning is issued to the editor of the Bande Mataram by the British Government. June 14 Leaves Calcutta for Khulna to found a national school. June 30-October 13 Publication of Perseus the Deliverer, a drama, in the weekly Bande Mataram. ... May 2 Arrested as implicated in the terrorist activities of a group led by his brother Barindra. Taken to the 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 Under trial prisoner at Alipore. Spends his time reading... Speech at Kumartuli. July 18 Speech at College Square, Calcutta. July 31 "An Open Letter to My Countrymen" published in the Karmayogin following resumed efforts of the British Government to have him deported. August 23 First issue of the Dharma, a Bengal weekly directed and mostly written by Sri Aurobindo. September Leader of the Nationalists at the Bengal ...
... Chettiar and remained in seclusion pursuing intensely his sadhana. Of course, the British Government did not believe this and continued trying to harass him and others who came as refugees to Pondicherry to evade arrest. For Pondicherry had become a safe haven for many freedom fighters. The British government did everything possible to arrest them and get them deported to British India. ... We reproduce here some extracts from reminiscences of those closely associated with Sri Aurobindo and from confidential notes made by the representatives of the British Government. These reminiscences will give some idea of the general mistrust that the British had about Sri Aurobindo and the continuous harassment that the political refugees had to undergo. Page 69 From ... welcome. It is stated that Arabindo agreed to do this, and the report indicates that Arabindo Ghose and V.V.S. Aiyar continue to be on good terms. The interest known to be taken by the British Government in Pondicherry affairs has encouraged some local men to come forward with exaggerated and false reports. The most notorious false informer is named Mayoresin, but there are others, and information ...
... knew nothing. His father began sending the newspaper The Bengalee with passages marked relating to cases of maltreatment of Indians by Englishmen and he wrote in his letters denouncing the British Government in India as a heartless Government." The Bengalee was the mouthpiece of Surendranath Bannerjee, a Moderate leader, who, at one time, was regarded as the uncrowned king of Bengal. But that was... for remedying this defect in India itself." Page 217 Thus both Sri Aurobindo and Chittaranjan Das were 'excluded' from the Indian Civil Service, as was S. N. Bannerjee, by the British Government —exclusions that were to rebound on it. Sri Aurobindo, however, avowed that it was he who chose not to appear for the riding test, for "they gave me another chance, and again I didn't appear... administrative life." He said frankly, "My interest was in poetry and literature and the study of languages and patriotic action." Then he let fall, "I didn't want to be in the British Page 218 Government Service. I had a strong dislike for the British." "But then why did you appear for the I.C.S. exam at all?" "I had no intention to do it," replied Sri Aurobindo. ...
... victory of Britain and, as the eventual result, an era of peace and union among the nations and a better and more secure world-order. 124 Page 236 March 31, 1942 (The British government, partly realizing th e inevitability of India's future independence and partly under American pressure to secure her support during the war, sent Sir Stafford Cripps to India in March, 1942... disciple who expressed anguish at the widespread horrors perpetrated on Hindus by Muslims in Bengal, notably in Noakhali and Tippera districts, now in Bangladesh; this organized violence —which the British government did nothing to stop— was part of Jinnah's plan of "Direct Action" which was intended to demonstrate the impossibility for Hindus and Muslims to live together, and therefore the inevitability... countries live in falsehood. If only one country stood courageously for truth, the world might be saved. 144 Page 255 March 31, 1942 (The British government, partly realizing the inevitability of India's future independence and partly under American pressure to secure her support during the war, sent Sir Stafford Cripps to India in March, 1942, with ...
... his mystic mind instead of the professorial one. EVENING PURANI: It seems Bonvain is going to declare for De Gaulle. SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. The British Government has put pressure on him. He must either declare for De Gaulle or the British Government will take possession of Pondicherry. Purani then reported that there had been a meeting of the Council in which David and others had spoken about... advised by Pétain: "Marchez avec les voisins." 4 SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, but this is not "avec" but "vers les voisins" , 5 more than what was asked. But this is the first time the British Government has given such an ultimatum. They are feeling stronger, perhaps, after their alliance with America in the matter of the naval base. × ...
... with the formation of the Madras Native Association in 1852 by a group of Western-educated Hindu youths under the captaincy of Gazulu. The chief object of this Association was to petition the British Government, bringing to its notice 'the grievances and wants of the inhabitants of the Presidency¥'. To a vast majority of the Hindus of those days, the executive authorities in Madras constituted the entire... Government of 'shameful duplicity, profound stupidity and insulting tyranny'. The Madras Native Association was largely responsible for the appointment of the Torture Commission by the British Government. It organised an agitation against torture employed in many parts of the Presidency by the revenue officials in exacting revenue from ryots and by the police in extorting confessions from criminals... nose to spite its face. Such violent and boisterous attacks and pejorative language employed by pro-Governmental agencies were born out of a real fear that the loyalty of the Presidency to the British Government could no longer be taken for granted. The literary contributions of G. A. Natesan, editor of the renowned Indian Review, shedding light on the growth of public opinion of the period also ...
... immediately after the Mutiny. Soon after the Mutiny, the British Government effected major changes in India. In 1858, the East India Company was abolished. It was decided that India was to be ruled by the Crown; in other words the king or queen of the United Kingdom was to rule India under the advice of the British Government. The Secretary of State assisted by a fifteen-man council was put... voice his reformist views on politics and society. Gokhale visited England and voiced his concerns relating to the unfair treatment of the Indian people by Page 48 the British government. He pleaded for gradual reform to ultimately attain Swaraj, or self-government, in India. He was instrumental in the formation of the Minto-Morley Reforms of 1909, which eventually became law ...
... chapter we present the contribution of V. P. Menon to the Freedom Movement. To describe V. P. Menon as a freedom fighter would be somewhat far-fetched, for he was a civil servant serving the British government in India. Yet as a civil servant he played a key role firstly in the integration of the princely states into India, thus saving India from balkanisation and, secondly, he helped tide over the... reconcile these different views and this was reflected in the plan presented to London. However, on 10 May 1947 at Simla, Nehru rejected the plans proposed by Mountbatten and approved by the British Government for the transfer of power; it was then that V. P. Menon got into the act. It took Menon less than six hours to pen a new plan for partition, which ultimately became the basis of the... same time, they imposed obligations on Britain that it was not prepared to continue to carry out, such as the obligation to maintain troops in India for the defence of the princely states. The British government therefore decided that paramountcy, together Page 112 with all treaties between them and the princely states, would come to an end upon the transfer of power. ...
... denouncing the policy of the Imperial Government, inciting thereby the latter's wrath. The Manifesto of the Home Rule League stated its object to be a 'strong, steady and sustained agitation'. The British Government wanted to start a dialogue with the organisers of Home Rule and Besant. Pentland, who Page 87 was the Governor of Madras, would have no such dialogue with Home Rulers... to have been focused upon the War and upon helping the British Empire. It was simply impossible for him to tolerate the public excitement which the Home Rule Movement was fomenting against the British Government by its inflammatory language in discussing political questions in the midst of a global war. He knew that under the Press Act of 1910 his government could proceed against Besant for damaging... some political progress. At the same time the Russian Revolution and President Wilson's suggestion for the formation of the League of Nations gave added momentum to the demand for Home Rule. The British Government reacted in typical fashion - stern handling and Page 87 suppression of the movement terming it as sedition. A case was instituted against Tilak; he was served a notice ...
... have a special liking for Rishi's flesh. Those who tried most to stop Sri Aurobindo from settling down and were ever on the alert to move him from his seat were the British authorities. The British Government in India could- never accept that Sri Aurobindo had come away to French territory for carrying on his yoga. Religion and spirituality, these to them were a mere subterfuge. They thought they... honour. But at the same time, they had their friendship, the entente cordiale, with Britain to maintain and it is this that got them into a dilemma. In addition to force and fraud, the British Government did not hesitate to make use of temptation as well. They sent word to Sri Aurobindo which they followed up by messenger, to say that if he were to return to British India, they would not mind... serious attack, perhaps the one most fraught with danger. The First World War was on. India had been seething with discontent and things were not going too well abroad on the European front. The British Government now brought pressure on the French: Page 403 they must do something drastic about their political refugees. Either they should hand them over to the British, or else let them ...
... a special liking for Rishi's flesh. Those who tried most to stop Sri Aurobindo from settling down and were ever on the alert to move him from his seat were the British authorities. The British Government in India could never accept that Sri Aurobindo had come away to French territory for carrying on his yoga. Religion and Page 43 spirituality, these to them were a mere subterfuge... at the same time, they had their friendship, the entente cordiale , with Britain to maintain, and it is this that got them into a dilemma. ⁂ In addition to force and fraud, the British Government did not hesitate to make use of temptation as well. They sent word to Sri Aurobindo which they followed up by a messenger, to say that if he were to return to British India, they would not... serious attack, perhaps the one most fraught with danger. The First World War was on. India had been seething with discontent and things were not going too well abroad on the European front. The British Government now brought pressure on the French: they must do something drastic about their political refugees. Either they should hand them over to the British, or else let them be deported out of India ...
... anglophile, was at heart a patriot who smarted under the predatory and repressive rule of the British Government in India. He began "sending The Bengali newspaper with passages marked relating cases of maltreatment of Indians by Englishmen and he wrote in his letters denouncing the British Government in India as a heartless Government." The feeling that had been haunting Sri Aurobindo that he... some way to escape from that bondage. He thus deliberately disqualified himself with- out himself rejecting the Service, which his family would not have allowed him to do." The reason why the British Government did not give him another chance for passing in the riding test was, of course, the fact that his revolutionary speeches at the Indian Majlis "had their part in determining the authorities to ...
... seen that the difficulty has become a blessing, or if I have had to face it boldly, someone has always delivered me out of danger. Later, during our life in exile, whenever the tyranny of the British Government tried to oppress us, we noticed how Sri Aurobindo’s Grace was always there to protect us. In the midst of endless abuses and suffering a heavenly cheerfulness wrapped us in its warm embrace,... happenings of life. He links here a few events in Sri Aurobindo’s life, revealing a deeper truth behind them.) “Yet I will Escape” — Sri Aurobindo Here are a few instances of how the mighty British Government in India planned to kidnap Sri Aurobindo, but was foiled in its effort every time: The Government prosecuted Sri Aurobindo for editing the Bande Mataram newspaper, but he was acquitted for... said: “I am not going to budge an inch.” It later transpired that the stevedore was shot dead by another sailor for a personal grievance. The sailor later committed suicide. At last, when the British Government in India could not succeed in kidnapping Sri Aurobindo, they sent an Envoy in a special Railway Saloon to persuade him to go to Darjeeling which, they suggested, would provide a better atmosphere ...
... older than him, was a friend of his. I don't know what position my brother had, but everything passed through his hands. When the world war broke out — the First World War, when I was here —the British Government asked the French to expel Sri Aurobindo and deport him to Algeria. They did not want Sri Aurobindo in Pondicherry; they were afraid. So when we came to know of this (Sri Aurobindo knew, we knew)... in his hands. He put them in the bottom of his drawer. They were shelved. And fell into oblivion." Mother smiled, "That made up for the rest." Page 48 To be more explicit. The British Government in India was, frankly speaking, scared stiff of the "most dangerous man," as Lord Minto, the Viceroy of India, was apt to say. For, Sri Aurobindo was not only the head of the nationalistic movement... extraordinary hold over the affection of his countrymen," as observed Justice Beachcroft, when he acquitted Sri Aurobindo in the Alipore Bomb Case in 1909. This fact was frightening indeed to the British Government. Thus, according to Sir Baker, the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, Sri Aurobindo was "our most conspicuous and most dangerous opponent." Whose object it was "to disseminate sedition through the ...
... control were given to popular ministers in an elected Assembly that he would have anything to do with offers from the British Government. Of this he saw no sign until the proposal of the Montagu Reforms in which first something of the kind seemed to appear. He foresaw that the British Government would have to begin trying to meet the national aspiration half-way, but Page 62 he would not anticipate... and public political activity in order to devote himself to his spiritual work, acting only by his spiritual force on the movement in India, until his prevision of real negotiations between the British Government and the Indian leaders was fulfilled by the Cripps' proposal and the events that came after. Meanwhile the Government were determined to get rid of Sri Aurobindo as the only considerable obstacle... all political connections or action; even when he intervened in politics twice afterwards on special occasions, this intervention was purely personal and the Ashram was not concerned in it. The British Government and numbers of people besides could not believe that Sri Aurobindo Page 64 had ceased from all political action and it was supposed by them that he was secretly participating in ...
... describes Indra as sending out these spaśa to trace the movements of his enemies, the forces of evil that clustered round the god. So, the Vedic gods had their spies, just as the modern British government had theirs, though of course there was bound to be a certain difference. These government spies tried to collect information as to who came to our houses, who were the people who met us, what... that he did not consider it advisable to leave here, for the intentions of the British authorities were not above suspicion. Abdul Karim too was sounded as to their intentions. He said the British Government meant us no harm, for he was well aware that we were saintly people engaged in sādhana alone, and so on. But Sri Aurobindo had serious doubts. Bejoy however was a headstrong man. He got eager... spectacular. There he disclosed his identity. Concealed behind the thick cloak of Sannyasa was our old comrade Amarendra, Amarendranath Chatterji, the noted terrorist leader for whose capture the British Government had been moving heaven and earth, that is, the worlds of the dead and the living, and also raising hell in the world of the underground. Perhaps they had set a price on his head too. And here ...
... demonstrated repeatedly that prayer and petition have no appreciable influence on the British Government and that whatever slight influence it might have once had, has faded into nullity. It is only when the nation, finding its prayers and petitions rejected, begins to manifest its strength that the British Government inclines its ear and is graciously pleased to withdraw a circular, to dismiss a Fuller... guarantee against this contingency is the control by the nation of its own destinies, and to secure an effective instalment of this control, should be the first aim of all our political action. No British Government will willingly concede anything in the nature of effective control. It can only be wrested from them by concentrating "the vital energies of the entire nation" into opposition to the Government ...
... Younghusband made a speech and the thanks of the British Government were conveyed to the Maharaja. The Maharaja, we are told, was so greatly affected that he could hardly find words to express his feelings, which is hardly wonderful considering the circumstances. He was able only to say that the tradition of his house was one of loyalty to the British Government. "This," says the Hindu Patriot , "is as it... the logic of the "oldest native paper in India". Why should it be so? Did not the founder of the Kashmir house pay a very heavy price for Kashmir! True to a disgraceful understanding with the British Government, of which both parties ought to have been ashamed, Golab Singh—to quote Sir Thomas Holdich,—"deserted his Sikh masters and paid for Kashmir with money looted from the Lahore treasury". So it ...
... y, under increased pressure. The British had not forgotten him, far from it. Had not Lord Minto said that ‘he could not rest his head on the pillow till he had crushed Aurobindo Ghose’? ‘The British Government and numbers of people besides could not believe that Sri Aurobindo had ceased from all political action.’ 42 We have seen that he was suspected of being the instigator of the murder of the... town in panic when the ship passed by. This visible German presence made the freedom fighters still more suspect as possible spies, and the French now seemed willing to throw them out. ‘The British Government brought increased pressure on the French: they must do something drastic about their political refugees,’ recalls Nolini. ‘Either they should hand them over to the British, or else let them be... Sri Aurobindo paused a little and then said, in a quiet clear tone, “I do not budge from here” … Sri Aurobindo had spoken and they could hardly act otherwise.’ 43 In this matter the British government in London had directly addressed the French government in Paris, where Mirra’s brother, Matteo, occupied at the time a senior post in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. ‘He [Matteo] did a great ...
... wanted to non-cooperate because the government was unjust. Asked whether they would put up with a just British government they could not reply. India must want freedom because of herself, because of her own Spirit.... Our basis must be broader than that of mere opposition to the British government. All the time our eyes are turned to the British and their actions. We must look to ourselves irrespective... in the year when Sri Aurobindo and the Mother gave darshan to their disciples in the Ashram and to visitors who received permission to come for the occasion. With the end of the war, the British Government pushed through the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms by passing the Government of India Act of 1919. The effect of these reforms was, as Sri Aurobindo had pointed out earlier, to leave real authority ...
... role in awakening the people. As a consequence of this awakening, the Madras Native Association was founded in 1852. Through this association, the grievances of the people were submitted to the British Government. The Madras Mahajana Sabha was later established in 1884. G. Subramaniya Iyer, P. Anandacharlu, Page 52 and Rangaiya Naidu played a significant part in the association... Indian National Congress. G. Subramaniya Iyer of Chennai participated and moved a resolution in the congress. In the beginning, the role of the Indian National Congress was not to oppose the British government, but to submit their grievances in a peaceful way. The sessions of Indian National Congress were convened at Madras in 1887, 1895 and 1898. C. Vijayaraghavachariyar played a prominent role in... congress during these years. The Partition of Bengal and VOC The year 1905 is one of the most important years in the history of the Freedom Movement of India; the year that the British Government decided to partition Bengal. The decision to partition Bengal into two provinces shocked the whole country. It was part of the British political trump card; the policy of divide and rule. As ...
... to do with offers from the British Government. Of this he saw no sign until the proposal of the Montagu Reforms in which first something of the kind seemed to appear. He foresaw that the British Government would have to begin trying to meet the national aspiration half-way, but he would not anticipate that moment before it actually came. The Montagu Reforms came nine years after Sri Aurobindo... public political activity in order to devote himself to his spiritual work, acting only by his spiritual force on the movement in India, until his prevision of real negotiations between the British Government and the Indian leaders was fulfilled by the Cripps' proposal and the events that came after. Meanwhile the Government was determined to get rid of Sri Aurobindo as the only considerable... political connections or action; even when he intervened in politics twice afterwards on special occasions, this intervention was purely personal and the Ashram was not concerned in it. The British Government and numbers of people besides could not believe that Sri Aurobindo had ceased from all political action and it was supposed by them that he was secretly participating in revolutionary ...
... to the British Government. After that they will break some laws or ask the Ministers to resign on the States' issue, if they have not done so by that time. Disciple : The States' question will be an all-absorbing matter and the split in the Congress may be avoided. Sri Aurobindo : But it is not definite what the princes will do. They are under the thumb of the British Government. Only... the presidentship. But he does not seem to have paid any heed to it. It may be that many delegates may vote against him. Sri Aurobindo : The only thing he speaks of is challenging the British Government and attacking the States – rather a tall order. Disciple : Yes, Gandhiji also challenged the Government. The result was the Round Table Conference. In the end, Willingdon arrested Gandhiji ...
... terroristic movement was to prepare the young men to have some sort of a military training, to kill and get killed. Otherwise it was never my idea that by throwing a few bombs we could overthrow the British Government. And that probably was the reason of the split among them. P. Mitter was for Page 314 the original idea while Barin was for this terrorism. I was never in direct contact with... recorded, "it was impossible for Sri Aurobindo to retain any great respect for Gokhale as a politician, whatever his merits as a man." Khaparde was more plainspoken: "Gokhale has no backbone." The British Government also had a very poor opinion of the politician: "Gokhale, as a party manager, is a baby," wrote Morley to Minto on 31 October 1907. "Gokhale is always whining. ..." But it suited them to use... present state of human consciousness; a sadhak of his yoga would be attacked by tremendous forces, and the sadhak would have to prove again and again his strength. "It is not a revolt against the British Government which anyone can easily do," Sri Aurobindo said candidly. "It is, in fact, a revolt against the whole universal Nature." The Revolutionary of the Swadeshi days would become the Revolutionary ...
... in Pondicherry. He has brought over 50,000 rupees for his election and is prepared to purchase the whole populace, if Page 411 necessary. Is it British rupees, I wonder? The British Government is also said to be interfering in his behalf and it is certain that a Mahomedan Collector of Cuddalore has asked his co-religionists to vote for this master of corruption. A violent administrative... of the murky manoeuvres, deals and cabals merrily taking place behind the "democratic" scene, and concluded that "At present it seems as if Bluysen by the help of the Administration money, the British Government and the devil were likely to win an easy victory. "Then there is Richard. He has neither agent, nor committee, nor the backing of a single influential man. What he has is the sympathy and... it. If after that, Chandernagore still votes for Bluysen or Lemaire, it is its own Page 414 choice and it will have itself to thank for anything that may follow." To the British government Paul Richard was 'a rabid socialist.' "He associated freely with extremists like Arabinda Ghosh and C. Subramanya Bharati," says a government report. Normally, even a tortoise can outpace ...
... Colonial Parliament and an Indian Legislative Council. Its acceptance would have committed Irish politicians to the abandonment of the policy of Parnell and to co-operation in future with the British Government. The Irish people were openly told that the concession of further self-government would depend on the way in which they used this precious opportunity, in other words on their abandoning passive... Scotland and Wales and when Ireland demanded Home Rule, she would have been told to be satisfied with a measure of self-government which had satisfied the other parts of the United Kingdom. The British Government would by that time have broken the solid phalanx of Irish Nationalism and by the bribe of office, position and influence succeeded in detaching from the cause a great number of the natural leaders ...
... hardly have been recognised or admitted by the Congress itself at that time. The British Government also would not have recognised it. It regarded the institution with dislike and ignored it as much as possible. Also, Sri Aurobindo was totally opposed to making any approach on behalf of the nation to the British Government; he regarded the Congress policy as a process of futile petition and protest and ...
... best arguments or talk the most eloquently. But the Congress started from the beginning with a misconception of the most elementary facts of politics and with its eyes turned towards the British Government and away from the people. * * * September 4, 1906 We objected so strongly to this measure [Bengal's Partition] because it was calculated to strike a serious blow at the... Sri Aurobindo found time to teach Indian history and geography, English history, political science, as well as French, German and English........ A year later, on August 16, 1907, the British government, alarmed by the spread and impact of the Bande Mataram, arrested Sri Aurobindo under a sedition law; he had turned thirty-five the day before. He owed his acquittal a month later to the ...
... foretell what it might lead to." 95 ** The disciple had probably referred to the second Round Table Conference, which Gandhi attended in London at the end of 1931 and which ended in failure. The British government in response unleashed a reign of terror, caning and firing on demonstrators, jailing, whipping and torturing tens of thousands. It then promulgated its "Communal Award," which further hardened... Muslims in the Provincial and Imperial Legislative Councils (the so-called "Luck now Pact"). Page 195 without their knowing it and get things done. It was the confounded British Government that spoiled my game by prosecuting me and forcing me to be publicly known and a "leader". Then, again, I don't believe in advertisement except for books etc., and in propaganda except for politics ...
... with Sri Aurobindo 2 JULY 1940 SRI AUROBINDO (looking at Purani): We are in a queer position about money. PURANI: How? SRI AUROBINDO: The British Government has stopped the British notes from coming here and the French notes are not accepted by this Government. PURANI: Why have they done that? SRI AUROBINDO: Don't know. The Consul seems to... AUROBINDO: Panic? People are desperate. NIRODBARAN: Is it all caused by the Indian Government? SRI AUROBINDO: No. The Indian Government has no jurisdiction over the colonies. Must be the British Government. NIRODBARAN: Is it done to exert pressure on the colonies? SRI AUROBINDO: No, in that case it would also have operated in Africa and Madagascar. They have nothing to do with British money ...
... independence is absurd. England won't concede that, especially if after that you declare yourself neutral. When the British Government offered Dominion Status of the Westminster variety— NIRODBARAN: That was as good as independence and, as in the case of Ireland, the British Government could not force India to join the war. SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, and Egypt too. Suppose today Hertzog gets a majority ...
... had time to invade India! In the North-East the I.N.A. 5 with the Japanese army at its back was triumphantly marching into Assam. The Indian army seemed to be in a panicky retreat, and the British Government, counting its imperial glory to be almost at an end, was preparing to leave India. The then Governor of Bengal seemed to have said at a cabinet meeting, "This time the game is up." When the words... Ashram in spite of all our help was suspected of being a nest of spies or enemy agents. Police search was apprehended and even the question of disbanding the Ashram was in the air. Perhaps the British Government had never entirely believed that Sri Aurobindo, once the most dangerous enemy of the British Empire, could really become their ally. Was he not still engaged in secret revolutionary activities ...
... preaching Home Rule for India, as well as in her unqualified support of the Allies in the First World War against Germany....' In 1918, when it was apparent that the war was coming to an end, the British Government announced the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms which were meant as a step towards self-government for India. In response to a request from Mrs. Besant for an opinion on the reform proposals, Sri Aurobindo... to concentrate on it so long as India is not free. Sri Aurobindo: Perhaps it may not be necessary to resort to revolutionary activities to free India. Purani: But without that how is the British government to go from India? Sri Aurobindo: That is another question; but if India can be free without revolutionary activity, why should you execute the plan? It is better to concentrate on yoga ...
... their country. After the Revolt of 1857, the East India Company was dissolved. Instead, the British Government directly assumed power over the Indian territories. A new political office was created in London, that of the Secretary of State for India, who became an important minister of the British Government and was put in overall charge of Indian affairs; but he seldom interfered in the internal a ...
... April 6, 1799 which only made the Chuars more furious. Equally important in the annals of India's struggle for freedom is the rebellion of the Santhals (1855) occupying Rajmahal Hills against the British Government who in league with the mahajans or moneylenders oppressed the industrious people, there being even cases of molestation of women. Under the leadership of two brothers, Sidhu and Kanhu, 10,000... 000 Santhals met in June 1855 and declared their intention to take possession of the country and set up a government of their own. In spite of the ruthless measures of the British Government to suppress them, the Santhals showed no signs of submission till February 1856, when their leaders were arrested and most inhuman barbarities were practiced on the Santhals after they were defeated. The ...
... Then he wrote to Churchill, "I wish you to know ... that I should be extremely happy if the British government would give me the opportunity of serving it, and by doing so, of continuing to serve the true interests of my country. "I therefore place my services at the disposal of the British government in such capacity as they can be most useful." Churchill sent him to the United States as ...
... trusts, not the right sort of men to be leaders; - in brief, that we are at present the blind led, if not by the blind, at any rate by the one-eyed. " 114 If Sri Aurobindo's indictment of the British Government is strong and sharp, his exposure and denunciation of the weaknesses of his own people is mercilessly scathing. His censure of the Congress is so ruthless, because he wishes the Congress well... his divine manhood. "Work that she (Mother India) may prosper. Suffer that she may rejoice." — Speeches of Sri Aurobindo. Page 100 problems. But neither the Congress nor the British Government were in a mood to listen. They merrily jogged along between blinkers. And what was the result? Within a few years of the warning, the pent-up indignation of the people burst up, shaking the country ...
... political situation was similar to that at the Surat Congress in 1907. The reception committee was formed of the Moderates who had framed draft-resolutions welcoming the reforms granted by the British government. Sri Aurobindo took up the Nationalist Party's cause single-handedly. He established the Bengal Nationalist association. He removed the age-limit clause from the admission rules and completely... goal of the Home Rule movement – and therefore he did not execute it. He thought about passive resistance at this time, but he knew that he could not be the leader of such a movement. The British government had declared some reforms in which he saw some signs of yielding, so he declared his opinion by inaugurating the principle "No cooperation without control." This, he thought, would enable the ...
... the first accused Nilakanta Brahmachari, was sent out from Pondicherry, and the conspiracy was hatched from the French territory; they quoted copiously from India, Page 235 British government through its representative in Madras, mounted pressure on the French: nothing short of the extradition of the Indian political refugees would do. The 'Swadeshis' were naturally alarmed. They... local administration should deny the Anglo-Indian government the assistance it asks in order to check activities that result in crimes and murders of a very dubious political nature. "The British government would be entitled to blame us for an attitude so contrary to good neighbourly relations and far from circumspect, because of the difficulties we might experience on our own territory on account ...
... dealing with the Administration's repressive measures, he ridiculed those who thought that "what God cannot give for the salvation of India, the British Government will give. What you cannot expect from God you are going to expect from the British Government. Your expectation is vain." Stands to reason! The interests clashed. He then spoke of the "Avatar Page 445 in the nation ...
... Mother's Chronicles - Book Five 28 Bhawani Mandir Needless to say that Bhawani Mandir was sure to be adjudged seditious matter by the British Government of India. The revolutionaries' chief means of propaganda was the publication of books and periodicals. The pamphlet Bhawani Mandir provided them with a golden opportunity. "The pamphlet... background, the movement was not likely to have the moral stamina required for the facing of death ungrudgingly, nor for giving moral tone to terrorist activities." On 10 December 1917, the British Government set up a Sedition Committe with Mr. Justice Rowlatt as President. The Commitee submitted its report on 15 April 1918. Among the pile of materials it studied, three books in particular drew its ...
... Chandernagore, then in French India. Throughout his life he was associated with a number of newspapers, including the Bande Mataram. He wrote profusely, except when he was put in prison by the British government. Upen Banerji and Debabrata Bose "were masters of Bengali prose," Sri Aurobindo declared, "and it was their writings and Barin's that gained an unequalled popularity for the paper." Even... was the first newspaper of the revolutionary party." Again Maharaja Suryakanta Acharya helped them in financing the paper. The Page 274 Barin the revolutionary British Government naturally viewed the matter in quite a different light. "This journal," reported the Rowlatt Sedition Committee, "began to pour forth racial hatred in March 1906, attained a circulation of 7 ...
... commit a blunder! The British government was ready to pounce on his slightest slip. But neither his actions nor his public utterances seemed to lend themselves to a new charge for sedition. Months and months passed. Then on 25 December a second signed letter was published in the Karmayogin (the first one being the Open Letter of 31July 1909) . The Indo-British government thought the article ...
... conditions of discussion? Professor —Put it like this. We agree to consider no question closed, not even gravitation, nor the motion of the earth, nor the necessity and beneficence of the British Government. All, in chorus —The Press Act, Professor, the Press Act! Section 124A! Section 121! We shall be transported, we shall get forfeited! Professor, reluctantly, but obviously alarmed by... warranted not to bite, though his views are fiery and his language, when excited, apt to be sulphurous. The Practical Man —No use for him, if we are not to question the beneficence of the British Government. Page 525 Professor —He will complete us. We must be a representative society. Besides, Extremism, I understand, has its positive aspects. Scientist —Will it be safe? Professor ...
... possessions, who managed to control the work of the local artisans, and so thoroughly that outside their factories all manufacture came to an end. On this came the protective policy of the British Government, which, despite the powerful interests of the East India Company, crushed Indian manufactures by prohibitive duties. Then came the application of steam to manufacture. It is scarcely to be wondered... other facilities. Native States in India, seriously handicapped as they are by their limited means and scope and the want of trained men, though they cannot emulate their great exemplar, the British Government, seem to limit themselves, as yet, too much to the routine of administration, and might do more for the material and commercial development of the country. Granted freedom of action, and with ...
... the best arguments or talk the most eloquently. But the Congress started from the beginning with a misconception of the most elementary facts of politics and with its eyes turned towards the British Government Page 126 and away from the people. To flaunt its moderation and reasonableness before approving English eyes, to avoid giving offence to British sentiments, to do nothing that would... military policy, and it passed omnibus resolutions covering the whole field of Indian affairs. All the time it had nothing behind it that could be called strength, no tangible reason why the British Government should respect and give form to its irresponsible criticisms. The Government on its side took the measure of the Congress and acted accordingly. Under the stimulus of an intolerable wrong ...
... Englishman is at it again. His fiery imagination has winged its way over rivers and hills and is now disporting itself on airy pinions over far Sylhet. We learn from our contemporary that the British Government has been subverted in Sylhet, which is now being governed by a number of schoolboys who—horrible to relate—are learning the use of deadly lathi . This startling resolution is the result of Babu... raw youths, who having adopted European costumes and rendered their upper lips destitute of "knightly growth", give themselves all the airs of a learned Theban and range themselves against the British Government." This is a sentence which we would not willingly let die and we would suggest to the raw youths with the destitute upper lips that they might sit in council and devise means to preserve a literary ...
... situation is some illusions about extreme political ideas, which have been shattered everywhere. July 4, 1940 (A disciple:) Gandhi has offered his help through the Viceroy to the British government and asked the British to lay down their arms and practise non-violence. He must be a little cracked. While asking them to lay down their arms, he wants them to keep up their... revolt one day. What about Poland and Czechoslovakia? They are two of the most heroic nations in the world and yet what can they do?... The trouble about India is that the British government has not kept a single promise so far. So nobody trusts it. The fact is that the British don't trust India to help them if she is given Dominion status. Otherwise they would have given ...
... Are we, again, to believe that the British Government which now sees wraiths even in wreaths of smoke, contemplates with a sense of security, if not with satisfaction also, the growth of this idea in the truculent population of the province and the consequent growth of the influence and power of an ordinary Zamindar? Are we then to believe that the British Government is too weak to check the spread of ...
... to May 1908 are published in Part Six. Sri Aurobindo remained in jail until May 1909, when he was acquitted and released. During his imprisonment the Bande Mataram was suppressed by the British government under the provisions of the Press Act of 1908. At the time of Sri Aurobindo's arrest, a number of documents were seized from his house. Among them were several articles on politics... which were written by Sri Aurobindo, were published. The Vande Mataram Press, Poona, issued three volumes entitled The Bande Mataram in 1909 (this collection was quickly proscribed by the British government). The Swaraj Publishing House, Benares, published Selections from the Bande Mataram in 1922. In 1957, 1958 and 1964 a number of Bande Mataram articles ascribed to Sri Aurobindo ...
... will have to depend solely upon what others can give. There are men who think that what God cannot give for the salvation of India, the British Government will give. What you cannot expect from God, you are going to Page 823 expect from the British Government. Your expectation is vain. Their interests are not yours, their interests are very different from yours, and they will do what their ...
... by death or persecution, of the martyrs for the cause.' In its comments the Bande Mataram added with biting sarcasm: 'We cannot sufficiently admire the vigorous and unselfish efforts of the British Government to turn all India into a nation of Extremists. We had thought that it would take us long and weary years to convert all our countrymen to the Nationalist creed. Nothing of the kind. The Government... once wrote: 'I was never ardent about fame even in my political days; I preferred to remain behind the curtain, push people without their knowing it and get things done. It was the confounded British Government that spoiled my game by prosecuting me and forcing me to be publicly known and a "leader".' Around this time Henry Nevinson, author and journalist, who had come out to India as a special ...
... east but also as a permanent lever with which to check India; and Kashmir was meant to be the proverbial thorn in India's flesh. The British government had everything to gain in keeping the tensions running high between India and Pakistan via J&K. The British government, therefore, could not afford to have India moving into Pakistan and crushing it nor could it afford to be drawn forcibly into a situation ...
... Shortly after the outbreak of the First World War, the Allies were loudly proclaiming their sympathy for smaller and weaker nations. Worried that Turkey might join the Germans in the War, the British government in order to win its support gave assurances of sympathetic treatment at the end of the war. The British Prime Minister, Lloyd George, declared on Jan. 5, 1918 that the Allies were "not fighting... government, which was inspired more by national than Pan-Islamic sentiment, forbade the admission of the Indian Muhajirs into Afghanistan. This was a severe blow to the Khilafat Movement. Soon, the British Government arrested the Ali brothers. The Hindu-Muslim alliance, founded as it was on a momentary hostility towards the British, could not endure for long. After the arrest of the Ali brothers, Gandhi seized ...
... Indian history might have been very different..... By resigning the Congress Party showed a lamentable lack of political wisdom. There was little chance of being put out of office: the British Government would surely have hesitated to incur the odium of dismissing ministries, which had the overwhelming support of the people. Nor could it have resisted a unanimous demand for a change at the centre... resolution of the Working Committee. Intelligent public opinion throughout India welcomed this development. Rajaji had, of course, his own doubts about the acceptance of the Congress proposal by the British Government because he knew that the views of the senior Civil Servants who advised the Viceroy and the Secretary of State were 'reactionary and out of date'. In this context, we present the position ...
... migrations are quite unprecedented in history. Two million Belgians have gone to Paris. NIRODBARAN: They can be put in the army. SRI AUROBINDO: That is what is being done. NIRODBARAN: If the British Government had started training in India, India would have played a great part at present. The commander-in-chief speaks of one hundred thousand soldiers. SRI AUROBINDO: That is nothing. SATYENDRA:... Government practical difficulties come in the way. SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, but necessity now demands self-government. Of course if the Congress had been conciliatory it would have been easy for the British Government. They can't accept whatever the Constituent Assembly decides. SATYENDRA: Englishmen here have their own vital interest at stake. SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, but that interest is also connected ...
... are undecided. NIRODBARAN: Perhaps the British will capture Pondicherry. SRI AUROBINDO: For that they will have to have an excuse; for example, Nazi agitation here. SATYENDRA: Even the British Government is hesitating about the Pétain Government. SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, if they had formed an alternative Government then it would have been easier. SATYENDRA: All the leaders seem to have been... been unable to leave France. SRI AUROBINDO: Except Blum; he must have brought away some money with him. SATYENDRA: Gandhi has offered his help, through the Viceroy, to the British Government and has asked them to lay down their arms and practise non-violence. SRI AUROBINDO: He must be a little cracked. SATYENDRA: While asking them to lay down their arms, he wants them to keep up their spirit ...
... advance all the practical consequences — which in our view were what we should be negotiating about. Certainly, Hirsch, Uri, and I could give some answers and collect some suggestions. But the British Government would not feel at ease unless it received 'a piece of paper'. I promised Plowden that we would write to him as soon as we returned to Paris, which we did. To have to do so was useful: it made... unionists Robert Bothereau, also of Force Ouvriere, and Gaston Teissier of the Catholic Workers' Confederation, the CFTC. Herve Alphand was to maintain liaison between the conference and the British Government. The other national delegations were made up on similar lines. I quickly split them up into working groups, and kept with me only the leading figures. But, first of all, every- one had to be ...
... 1940-contd Talks with Sri Aurobindo 18 SEPTEMBER 1940 NIRODBARAN: Gandhi says he won't embarrass the British Government; at the same time he is asking permission to start non-violent non-participation in the war. This statement seems queer. SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, it is very funny. He may as well hope for the Viceroy and other Englishmen to walk out of... Gandhi's speech that he almost wished he had stuck to his first statement. SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. NIRODBARAN: People make wonderful statements. Nehru said they were not bargaining with the British Government, and now Gandhi again makes another contradictory statement. SRI AUROBINDO: Original ideas! EVENING PURANI: Anilkumar has been asking me if it is true that Italy has invaded Egypt. ...
... surprise. One by one the Vichy Government is taking steps leading to that. SATYENDRA: The world seems to be getting chaotic. But if such a thing happens, the British Government will grab Pondy at once. NIRODBARAN: The British Government has thanked the Nizam for his contribution. But the Nizam must be smarting and cursing within for the loss of his money. SRI AUROBINDO (laughing): They specially ...
... appeared late for the test. DR. MANILAL: Why? Was it under any inspiration? SRI AUROBINDO: No, (laughing) it was intentional. I wasn't dealing in inspiration then. I didn't want to be in the British Government Service. I had a strong dislike for the British. DR. MANILAL: But then why did you appear for the I.C.S. exam at all? SRI AUROBINDO: I had no intention to do it. It was my father who wanted... AUROBINDO: No. DR. MANILAL: Then he would have been shocked in any case. SRI AUROBINDO: When they came to know, they all asked me to try again. But I didn't want to and I knew too that the British Government wouldn't give me another chance. DR. MANILAL: Why? SRI AUROBINDO: My record was too bad. DR. MANILAL: How? SRI AUROBINDO: They thought that I was a revolutionary, giving seditious ...
... Chapter 13 Under the Auspices of the Gods When he came out of the Alipore jail, Sri Aurobindo found the political scene purged by the executions and mass deportations of the British government. He resumed his work, however, starting a Benagli weekly and another in English, the Karmayogin , with the Gita's very symbolic motto: "Yoga is skill in works." At the risk of a new imprisonment... could question everything. 355 One day, as he was again being urged to resume his political struggle, Sri Aurobindo promptly replied that what was needed was not a revolt against the British Government, which anyone could easily manage... [but] a revolt against the whole universal Nature. 356 The few disciples – there were about fifteen of them – all remember that very special, highly ...
... still remember those touches. How soft was my Lord’s body! from his eyes affection and benevolence seemed to rain incessantly on us.” — Shobha Datta About 1909-1914 – The Andaman Jails The British Government was secretly shipping us off to the Andamans in small batches. There the jail authorities at once segregated the political prisoners from the ordinary convicts perhaps to prevent them from catching... always with you” which sustained us. (M) Other Jails in India We continued with our efforts to escape from the Andamans. The ordinary convicts too tried to follow our example. The British Government was worried. They began, under any pretext whatsoever, to send us back to the mainland to be lodged in different Indian jails. I was sent to Nagpur via Madras. Once again my life was confined ...
... criminals as in politics." Evidently he knew about his own followers. Page 197 Disciple : But if Bose sincerely believes that the Congress is going to compromise with the British Government on federation, is not he justified in fighting the federation in the congress? He says that some suspicious negotiations seem to be going on behind the scenes. Sri Aurobindo : But what... a pity to give up all that work for merely fighting the Federation. You can fight it even after it is established. One has to accept what one gets and on that basis work out the rest. If the British Government finds that the federation is perfectly worked out it may not object to give more. They expect a crowd of demagogues shouting together in Assembly, not people capable of governing. But if socialism ...
... prospect of suffering seems to please him though he puts in a lot of ethics with his justification, the fact is that something in him enjoys suffering. 2. Secondly, if he knows that to the British Government 50 Gandhis would not matter – what does he propose then to achieve politically by his fast? He even knows that the British people are not even going to consider the possibility of Ahimsa! ... Mahommedans, – they want to rule India. If Gandhi undertakes his fast for self purification or for spiritual end it is something, but how can he gain political power by that? It is the British Government that gives way to such pressure. Against Germany, Japan, Russia or even France that has no chance. Virawala a match for Gandhi. Vallabhbhai's life attempted after Amreli and Rajkot. Jail ...
... 13. ² Sri Aurobindo, On Himself, pp. 38-39. ³ Ibid., p. 197 4 Ibid., p. 196. 5 Ibid., p, 39 . Page 230 March, three days after the fall of Rangoon, the British government announced that they were sending Sir Stafford Cripps, a member of the War Cabinet, to India. In a Draft Declaration, issued shortly after Cripps' arrival in Delhi on 27 March 1943, the... struggle for freedom continued. In February 1946 in response to increasing Indian demands for independence complicated by serious Hindu-Muslim disturbances in Bengal and other places, the British government announced it intention to leave the country by June 1948. ON 1 July 1947 The Indian Independence Bill was passed by Parliament; the date fixed by it for the transfer of authority into Indian ...
... but say "Sir" and bow before something calm and majestic, with an immobile fire inside. Then this fire melted into a blue infinity. And there were also spies. They were well guarded. The British Government had rented a whole house in Pondicherry where it lodged a squad of plainclothes Anglo-Indian policemen, who took shifts at Sri Aurobindo’s door, watching every gesture, taking down the visitors’... in the well, along with duly forged, “incriminating" letters; whereupon the British amiably advised the French police to “investigate” and make sure that nothing was hidden in the well (the British Government tried everything to have him extradited). The Police Commissioner, in white gloves, would come with a detachment of sepoys, discover the documents, search the rooms and finally come upon Sri ...
... preferred to remain behind the curtain, push people without their knowing it, and get things done. It was the confounded British Government that spoilt my game by prosecuting me and forcing me to be publicly known as a 'leader'. 40 Thanks to the bungling of the British Government in India, Sri Aurobindo's name was overnight on the lips of a whole people. The semi-mystery of the authorship of ...
... Mother's Chronicles - Book Five 38 The Confounded British Government "And the second fact is," wrote Sri Aurobindo to Dilip on 2 October 1934, giving his reasons for declining a request from Dr. Radha krishna for a philosophical contribution. "And the second fact is that I do not care a button about having my name in any blessed place... place. I was never ardent about fame even in my political days; I preferred to remain behind the curtain, push people without their knowing it and getting things done. It was the confounded British Government that spoiled my game by prosecuting me and forcing me to be publicly known as a 'leader.'" That was the Bande Mataram Sedition Case. In 1907 the Government began 'seditious' proceedings ...
... spasa in the old Vedic language. The Vedic Rishi describes Indra as sending out these spasa to trace the movements of his enemies.... So, the Vedic gods had their spies, just as the modern British government had theirs, though of course there was bound to be a certain difference. These government spies tried to collect information as to who came to our houses, who were the people who met us, what... money and anxiety and which [might] have brought you most serious trouble but for the keen sense of justice on the part of certain French magistrates."' After the assassination of Ashe the British government put a lot of pressure on the French government. This time the French government in Pondicherry yielded. The 'Aliens Act' was resurrected. "But now the law was made stringently applicable to refugees ...
... which any impartial court could pronounce guilty under the law. "... Subsequently the Pondicherry journals, with some of which I had already severed my connections, were proscribed by the British Government. "In the month of July 1911. Collector Ashe of the Tinnelvelly District was shot dead by a Brahmin, Vanchi Iyer, and, as though to encourage the inventive skill of the Madras Police, Vanchi... after I Page 233 left British India, in some obscure corner of a far-off district where a previous Collector had incurred unpopularity [in the Tinnelvelly Riots affair], the British Government, on the advice of the lower Police, issues a warrant against me on the charge of conspiracy, while the same charge of conspiracy brought against me by the hirelings of the same Police people ...
... lodgement there. The Maharaja was so greatly affected that he could hardly find words to give vent to his feelings. He was able only to say that the tradition of his house was loyalty to the British Government. This is as it should be." This indeed is as it should be. And it reminds us of the Hindu Patriot 's sudden change of opinion in the matter of the site for the proposed Victoria Memorial ...
... ago imagined. But the danger of sedition is the cessation of British rule. And in the opinion of Mr. Morley, supported by an almost unanimous consensus of British opinion, the re-enactment by a British government of the iniquities and atrocities of ancient and modern tyranny are preferable to the cessation of British rule; it is better to take the risk of these than to take the risk of losing the absolute ...
... says is very interesting. He explains what sedition is and the explanation is of course authoritative, since it comes from the Law Member. First, the preaching of active rebellion against the British Government. To that of course there can be no objection. Whoever preaches an armed rebellion, does it with the gaol and gallows before his eyes, and is not likely to complain if he is punished. Secondly ...
... clearness and precision as we ourselves would have used, yet definitely enough for all practical purposes. The Congress has declared self-government on colonial lines to be its demand from the British Government and this is only a somewhat meaningless paraphrase of autonomy or complete self-government. The Congress has recognised the legitimacy of the Boycott movement as practical in Bengal without ...
... tyrannical proceedings are subversive of the principles of British law. This delusion of the Moderates ought now to be renounced. They have always laboured under the delusion that because the British Government as apart from its local instruments, acts within the law, it is therefore incapable of oppression. On the contrary, as the Statesman points out, the British laws give ample room and provide ...
... Aurobindo 24.Oct.1906 - 27.May.1907 Bande Mataram How to Meet the Ordinance 15-May-1907 When we come to look at it closely, the new policy of the British Government in India is a real blessing to the country. We find ourselves in unexpected agreement with the Anglo-Indian Press in this matter. The Anglo-Indian Press is full of joy at these departures from ...
... diplomacy. The diplomacy of grown-up children! The diplomacy of the ostrich hiding its head in the sand? What a poor idea these "leaders" must have formed of the political intelligence of the British Government and of Englishmen generally, if they think they can be deceived by such puerile evasions. Bureaucracy and Anglo-India take advantage of these professions and laugh in their sleeves. Meanwhile ...
... mail laments the exclusion of Indians from the representative system on which the new constitution in the Transvaal is to be based and plaintively recalls the professions and promises of the British Government at the time of the Boer war. The saintly simplicity of India grows daily more and more wearisome to us. Everybody who knew anything at all about politics understood at the time that those ...
... Statesman is that of regret that the Courts had to go through the ordinary procedure of the law and could not effect a swift, dramatic and terror-striking vindication of the inviolability of the British Government. One would have thought that a nation with the legal and political traditions of the English people would have been glad that the procedure of law had been preserved, the chances of error minimised ...
... blessed place. I was never ardent about fame even in my political days; I preferred to remain behind the curtain, push people without their knowing it and get things done. It was the confounded British Government" that spoiled my game by prosecuting me and forcing me to be publicly known as a 'leader'. Then again I don't believe in advertisement except for books, and in propaganda except for politics ...
... Aurobindo sent a message of support to Stafford Cripps on 31 March 1942. Cripps, former Ambassador to Moscow and at present member of Churchill’s War Cabinet, was sent on a mission to India by the British Government, with a proposal for India’s self-determination immediately after the war in exchange for her loyal support during the war. Sri Aurobindo saw at once that this would be equivalent to dominion ...
... in Pondicherry he remained in seclusion for more than three months, not leaving the house in which he had been given shelter nor allowing the young men staying with him to do so either. ‘The British Government in India could never accept that Sri Aurobindo had come away to French territory to carry on his yoga. Religion and spirituality, these to them were a mere subterfuge … Here was the brain-centre ...
... blessed place. I was never ardent about fame even in my political days; I preferred to remain behind the curtain, push people without their knowing it and get things done. It was the confounded British Government that spoiled my game by prosecuting me and forcing me to be publicly known as a "leader". I don't believe in advertisement expect for books and in propaganda except for politics and Patent ...
... must also have got known to many. About that time Baron came, you told him of your book and he was very much alarmed at any eulogy of Subhash coming from the Ashram and was afraid that the British Government would be in a fury and would do something about it: he spoke of this to the Mother and said that he was inviting you to dinner and would take the opportunity to discuss the whole thing with ...
... that the Gandhian satyagrahi, with his fasts, his meek bearing of lathi charges, his open intimation to the police of what he would do, his willing offer of himself for imprisonment did fill the British Government with shame and won many compassionate concessions. One cannot help admiring for a time this novel and not ignoble method. But soon it becomes clear that, though it is effective for a few immediate ...
... harmony between two sharp-edged swords. We launched our boat and commenced our voyage to meet the Divine in every act of our life. She started her practical training under my supervision. The British Government passed a Bill for the medical profession prescribing that the intending practitioners in medicine had to get themselves registered and prohibiting their practice without registration. In 1941 ...
... behalf. His first emissary was a young Bengali who had by the help of Sri Aurobindo's friends in the Baroda Army enlisted as a trooper in a cavalry regiment in spite of the prohibition by the British Government of the enlistment of any Page 69 Bengali in any army in India. This man who was exceedingly energetic and capable, formed a first group in Calcutta which grew rapidly (afterwards ...
... But I do not see how these things are going to be done. There may, of course, be a sudden Lemairiste rally, but at present it seems as if Bluysen by the help of the Administration money, the British Government and the devil were likely to win an easy victory. Laporte had some chance of strong backing at the beginning but his own indolence & mistakes have destroyed it. He is now waiting on God and ...
... blessed place. I was never ardent about fame even in my political days; I preferred to remain behind the curtain, push people without their knowing it and get things done. It was the confounded British Government that spoiled my game by prosecuting me and forcing me to be publicly known and a "leader". Then again I don't believe in advertisement except for books etc., and in propaganda except for politics ...
... previously he knew nothing. His father began sending the newspaper The Bengalee with passages marked relating cases of maltreatment of Indians by Englishmen and he wrote in his letters denouncing the British Government in India as a heartless Government. At the age of eleven Sri Aurobindo had already received strongly the impression that a period of general upheaval and great revolutionary changes was coming ...
... to me and put me some questions to which I have answered. I have noted the questions and the answers so that your exterior consciousness can benefit by it. "Why are you not angry at the British Government when it acts in a way so detrimental to the Ashram?" Why be angry? It is quite natural that they should do so as it is in their interest and they have the power. "But it is not right and ...
... friend of his, a little older (I don't know what post my brother held, but anyhow, everything went through his hands). When the war broke out (I was here, it was the first of the World Wars), the British government asked the French to expel Sri Aurobindo and send him to Algeria—they didn't want Sri Aurobindo to be in Pondicherry, they were afraid. But we came to know of it (Sri Aurobindo came to know of ...
... reflux of the Force he has set in motion. At the beginning of this century, when India was still struggling against British domination, Sri Aurobindo asserted: "It is not a revolt against the British Government [that is needed].... It is, in fact, a revolt against the whole universal Nature." 2 For the problem is fundamental. It is not a question of bringing a new philosophy to the world or new ...
... Blood must be spilled for a noble cause, but it must be our own blood. One remembers how at the height of his Civil Disobedience Movement in 1922, with the entire nation steeled to resist the British Government and bring the proud rulers to their knees, Gandhi cast away the prize nearly in his hands and stopped the campaign just because at Chauri Chaura the populace, inflamed by armed police repression ...
... may be interesting to put together all the documents relating to Sri Aurobindo's intervention. Sir Stafford, on arriving in India, issued the following Draft Declaration on behalf of the British Government: "His Majesty's Government, having considered the anxieties expressed in this country and in India as to the fulfilment of promises made in regard to the future of India, have decided to lay ...
... the incongruity we are trying to focus. How does Parthasarathy figure at all when the town outside British India to which Sri Aurobindo went from Calcutta, the sphere of the harassment by the British Government to which Parathasarathy had referred in his meeting with Sri Aurobindo, was Chander-nagore in French India and not Pondicherry? In a letter of 15 December 1944 which the Archives quotes, Sri ...
... value the Mahatma attached to austerity and asceticism and questioned his idealisation of poverty. The non-cooperation movement launched by the Indian National Congress was a threat to the British government. A large number of "non-cooperators" were jailed. Nehru was arrested for the first time in 1921 with his father and sentenced to six months imprisonment. Over the next 24 years he served another ...
... must have got very excited. At any rate there was a pistol, there was Satyen and there was Banerji. (Laughter) NIRODBARAN: So why not shoot him? DR. Manilal: Is it true, Sir, that the British Government wanted to kidnap you and but you were guarded by men with pistols? SRI AUROBINDO: May be. DR. Manilal: I was also present at the Congress. I didn't know of any row. . NIRODBARAN: You ...
... Federation. You can fight it even after it has been established—you can fight the Federal Government. One has first to utilise what one has obtained and on that basis work out the rest.. If the British Government finds that Federation is properly worked out, it may not object to giving more. It expected a crowd of demagogues shouting together in the Assembly, not people capable of governing. But if Socialism ...
... time foreign governments were sought who were interested in India's struggle with the British. Actually, during the Bengal movement it seems a ship of ammunition from Germany was captured by the British Government. SRI AUROBINDO: That was at the time of Rashbehari Ghose, perhaps in 1905 or 1908. The idea of revolution at that time was intelligible. But now, after the First World War, with so much d ...
... German generals say that they are still not in contact with the main body of the French troops. Where are the troops? What are they doing? SATYENDRA: They may come in at the end. PURANI: The British Government has taken very strong measures. NIRODBARAN: They say it has turned Socialist and Communist. PURANI: This is due to the Labour influence, probably. SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. From individual ...
... being arrested, there was great excitement on a large scale. Now the students came forward and took up the lead. Leaders came to our hostel and told us that we must take up the challenge. The British government is arresting our men, we must stop them. So one after another, leaders from the hostel came forward and batches were formed. The Prince of Wales was to visit India soon, and Mahatma Gandhi ...
... would have been less stiff in combination with Linlithgow. DR. RAO: Hore-Belisha and Simon seem to have been promoted to the Lords. SRI AUROBINDO: Kicked upstairs? PURANI: In India the British Government does not seem to be inclined to make any further move. SRI AUROBINDO: No. It can't. It has said that compromise with the Muslims has to be effected. It has given the veto to Jinnah, and Gandhi ...
... Akbar says that Hyderabad had no Hindu-Muslim trouble before. It has been brought in from outside. SRI AUROBINDO: That is true. Muslims from the North and the Arya Samaj brought it there. The British Government can't allow the Khaksars to become powerful, for they want to drive out the British. SATYENDRA: It is said that the Government is behind the present Hindu-Muslim disunity. Somebody said that ...
... says, "Where were they when we were in prison? Let them come out from the high courts and fight." SRI AUROBINDO: I don't see why they should. They haven't, like him, given an ultimatum to the British Government. PURANI: "And where was he when Savarkar and Parmanand were in the Andamans?", the Hindu Sabha will say. ...
... Gandhi would make a big row. Of course he is right in one respect. He says private armies will be of no use if you go in for defence. They will be like the Khaksars. Then you have to join with the British Government. I didn't see any reference to the mysterious letter to Gandhi sent through Aney. I thought it was impossible. ...
... 1940-contd Talks with Sri Aurobindo 15 JULY 1940 SATYENDRA: The British Government has issued a notice that France and her African possessions will be treated as enemy countries as regards trade. All trade is forbidden with them. They don't mention Indo-China or Pondicherry perhaps because they have declared a status quo. They know that if there is no ...
... Express say that the Congress ought to accept the Viceroy's offer, otherwise other people will come and take it. SRI AUROBINDO: Quite so. M.N. Roy has also advised unconditional support to the British Government. For once he has agreed with me. NIRODBARAN: How? You didn't mean unconditional support! SRI AUROBINDO: They ought to have done that at the beginning as Gandhi had said. They would have ...
... been in Dunkirk. The papers said that it was due to his organisation that the British Army was able to evacuate. Then the German statement that he was taken prisoner long ago must be a myth. The British Government was wise in asking the French Government to escape by aeroplane, while Prioux could not. Such men are worth more than soldiers. PURANI: Duff Cooper was also in Paris during the raid. SRI ...
... NIRODBARAN: Sikandar says he can't understand Gandhi's logic. The logic of Mahatmas is different from that of ordinary mortals like him. Otherwise what could be meant by non-embarrassing the British Government and at the same time preaching India's non-participation? SATYENDRA: I would like to know what Kripalani says about this statement of Gandhi. He has a keen intellect. PURANI: The Sikhs ...
... 1940-contd Talks with Sri Aurobindo 11 OCTOBER 1940 SATYENDRA: The British Government is preparing a huge scheme of insurance for all against the destruction caused by Germany. SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, it will be a heavy bill. I don't see how they can meet it unless they socialise the whole Government. It is only by socialisation that they can succeed. ...
... complete victory. Page 71 It must be remembered that the climate under which the message of the Bande Mataram had to combat with its adversary forces was entirely unfavourable. The British Government had detected in Sri Aurobindo "the most dangerous man" and had perceived the rising tide of nationalist movement with utmost severity and with harshest measures of repression. Within the country ...
... Aurobindo Ghose.... I have spoken of a year's imprisonment. It would have been more appropriate to speak of a year's living in an ashram or a hermitage.... The only result of the wrath of the British Government was that I found God.' Meanwhile the news of Sri Aurobindo's arrest and of the large-scale rounding up of the revolutionaries had spread all over the country. People were stunned. The Muzzafarpur ...
... those days. In 1908 a collection of his stories attracted the attention of the bureaucracy and he was summoned before the Collector and was told, "You are spreading sedition and have insulted the British Government." He was ordered to stop publishing without permission. This led him to adopt the name "Premchand", and he continued writing. He was disgusted by the British authorities and wanted badly to give ...
... who visited India as a representative of The Manchester Guardian, reported: "Priestly Mullahs went through the country preaching the revival of Islam and proclaiming to the villagers that the British Government was on the Mohammedan side, that the Law Courts had been specially suspended for three months and no penalty would be exacted for violence done to the Hindus, or for the loot of Hindu shops or ...
... was going to be their last and best opportunity; so they created a good deal of trouble. Sri Aurobindo and the Mother held a very different view. What they said in effect was this: "Help the British government to the best of your abilities. Enter every branch of their civil administration and their military organisation. Associate with them everywhere, on land, in the air and at sea; capture all positions ...
... the contrary that they would take us straight to Fort William and finish us off with a firing squad! I was in fact getting myself ready for that. But things turned out rather differently. The British Government could not be so heartless after all. We were taken to the lock-up at the Lal Bazar police station. There they kept us for nearly two days and nights. This was perhaps the most trying time of ...
... of them is still here. His name is Nolini Kanta Gupta. Of those who are no more, Bejoy Kumar Nag was one—his name became Vijayakantan in Tamil. In order to escape from the clutches of the British Government he had assumed the pseudonym Bankim Chandra Basak. Likewise, Suresh Chandra Chakravarti was known to the people of Pondicherry by one name alone: "Sakra". Sourindranath Bose went by his own ...
... y: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1972), p. 7. Page 30 passages marked relating cases of maltreatment of Indians by Englishmen and he wrote in his letters denouncing the British Government in India as a heartless Government. At the age of eleven Aurobindo had already received strongly the impression that a period of general upheaval and great revolutionary changes was coming ...
... blessed place. I was never ardent about fame even in my political days; I preferred to remain behind the cur tain, push people without their knowing it and get things done. It was the confounded British Government that spoiled my game by prosecuting me and forcing me to be publicly known as a "leader". October 1934 * Q: What is the truth behind personality? Sri Aurobindo: There are ...
... to have worked in Motilal Mehta's book ! One of them impressed me so much that I was never able to forget it. It happened when I was staying Page 111 in Rue St. Louis. The British Government sent the police to arrest me. It seems I was standing at the top of the staircase when they came. They climbed up the staircase but immediately afterwards they found themselves at the bottom ...
... difficult to concentrate on it so long as India is not free." "Perhaps it may not be necessary to resort to revolutionary activity to free India," he said. "But without that how is the British Government to go from India?" I asked him. "That is another question; but if India can be free without revolutionary activity, whyshould you execute the plan? It is better to concentrate on yoga – the ...
... those who have sacrificed their lives. Mona: Yes, Mother…. The Mother: It was really an exceptional time in History, and they were exceptional people to have the courage to challenge the British Government. It is an extraordinary group… Well, bring me this book some other day. I’ll look at it in more detail and read a little. It is interesting to see how Sri Aurobindo began this movement and ...
... Ramayana is needed to appreciate the subtlety of Sri Aurobindo's assailment of the Moderatist position. In the words of Prema Nandakumar, "the whole point of the indictment is that Morley (or the British Government) was not an avatar like Rama, and Gokhale and his friends erred by imagining themselves in the righteous role of Vibhishana and the other allies of Rama, and erred even more by taking the ...
... Buchanan (of U.S.A.) who seems to have said somewhere that "in maintaining peace, unifying the country, developing communications and setting up a standard of integrity and industry", the British Government had "accomplished more than could have been expected of any other government, Indian or foreign, during this period". A Daniel indeed come to judgement! On the other hand, books like ...
... conducted Sri Aurobindo from the boat to his own house. Reclining in an easy-chair in Motilal's drawing room, Sri Aurobindo asked him to lodge him at a secret place, so that the agents of the British Government might not get the scent of his whereabouts. "I led him across our unused room to a dark apartment on the first floor, set apart as a store-room for chairs. A thick layer of dust lay settled on ...
... Indian political life miserably barren and ineffective. They also lacked backbone, that is, moral courage. With a cool daring Arabindo Babu invaded the domain Page 9 of the British Government. His razor-sharp pen-pricks were like sword-jabs into bureaucracy's body. Under his leadership an epoch-making movement, Nationalism or Swadeshi, was born in India. It shattered all human ...
... he began his political career it was India he looked at. India the Mother. He saw how the colonial government was sucking the blood of the Mother. His legitimate revolt against the entrenched British Government was to free his country from foreign domination. So too now. When he achieved those spiritual realizations Page 264 he looked at the Earth. Why does she have to perpetually ...
... straitened became their circumstances that they could no longer afford to live in Raghavan House. In April 1913, from European quarters they shifted to the west of the Canal. A fact duly noted by the British government with deep satisfaction. But Motilal had seen for himself the situation when he came to Pondicherry in mid-1911. He came from Chandernagore along with two other special Representatives ...
... possible character but that of a wanton libel meriting only the silence of contempt." We don't know whether or not he made that 'exposition' he intended. But what is certain is that the British Government refused to believe him. It resorted to all sorts of underhand tricks to discredit the Swadeshis, as we have already seen, and shall see some more. Page 255 ...
... Aurobindo's name appeared as the Editor of the paper. But from then on he controlled the policy of the Bande Mataram and the policy of the Nationalist Party. It was not only against the British government that the articles abounded. "When I began the paper," Sri Aurobindo told a politician disciple in 1926, "I started attacking the big heads of the Moderate Party —among them Surendranath Banerji ...
... Bengali administration, but to create a Mohammedan province, where Islam could be predominant and its followers in ascendancy." Sri Aurobindo set out to demolish many delusions held by the British government and shared by a part of the Indian intelligentsia. And, as was his wont, he went beyond and opened up a vast Promise. "When the word of the Eternal has gone abroad," he wrote in the Bande Mataram ...
... of the Gandhi type, under other leaders." A first Command sent him to Chandernagore. A second Command sent him to Pondicherry. That is how God came to the rescue of the Indo-British government. Page 79 ...
... explanation. So long the Imperial Government had carefully excluded any Indian from having a say in the governance of his own country. But in 1909, under growing pressure of Indian public unrest, the British Government awoke to the necessity of giving some representation to Indians and, for the first time, agreed to the appointment of an Indian to the Viceroy's Executive Council; one each to the Executive Councils ...
... Calcutta harbour. Then was out in the Bay of Bengal. The 'most dangerous man,' the prize Catch eluded the net cast wide for him by the mighty British empire. On 1 st April 1910, the British Government was made an April Fool I Whose whimsical humour weaves such time nets? On 4 April S.S. Dupleix reached Pondicherry harbour. There she dropped her anchor. That is how Sri Aurobindo ...
... proposals and counter-proposals had been triangularly exchanged between the governments of Bengal, of India, and the Secretary of State for India. The fact of the matter is that the Indo-British government was scared of Babu Arabindo Ghose. True, it was now able to breathe a little more easily, since most of the known 'terrorists' like Barin, Upen, Ullaskar etc., had been banished for life to the ...
... plunder, arson, outrage and massacre are committed for the good of the slaughtered nation?" So much so that the Indians Page 291 feared it to be the "deliberate policy of the British Government to convert them en masse to Christianity," notes the historian R. C. Majumdar. Many of the facts and figures quoted above can be found in Romesh Dutt's Economic History of India. Romesh ...
... and we shall have to pay at once, or face the prospect of being dragged into court and losing our prestige here entirely." The deep respect Sri Aurobindo inspired was a cause for worry to the British Government: "Arabindo Ghose is important as he commands general respect" says a confidential report by C.I.D. Madras. Sri Aurobindo was looking for a better house to move in. Then two events occurred ...
... which, recovered from its old stagnation, was making immense strides, with a vastly superior pharmacy, an ever bolder & more subtle surgery and organised & living grasp of sanitation. When the British Government finally established itself throughout the country, its enlightened and benevolent instincts left only one course open to it. The epidemics which yearly devastated filthy & insanitary towns and ...
... honestly himself. Both the rulers and the ruled have been playing at blind man's buff all these years with this great civic virtue, each seeking to make some political capital out of it. That the British Government in India never set a two-pence value on the loyalty of their Indian subjects,—though they are always anxious to proclaim it from the housetops, as a magnificent charm to keep away the evil-eye—is ...
... Indian blood be shed, with those who shed it shall rest the guilt and on those who commanded it shall fall the Divine Vengeance. It will not come to that, for Heaven has not as yet deprived the British Government so utterly of its reason as to command or the British nation as to condone such an outrage. But the possibility of it should have no terrors for men vindicating their legal rights & the small ...
... outside like Miss Maitland. She came here from an interest in Yoga and is not in the least interested in politics. If you begin to talk to her about the freedom of India and the misdeeds of the British Government, she will inevitably think in the end that the Consul was right and the Asram is full of revolutionaries under the garb of Yoga. It is surprising that the members of this Asram seem always unable ...
... × 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. ...
... Dominion Status The Mother has said that only a minor portion of the government will remain in British hands. That seems to be a description of "Dominion Status". In the Dominions the British Government have only a nominal power, not any real sovereignty. Page 205 It is not the time to speak of these things—for we have kept politics out of our scope. What we have to do is not to ...
... nothing to do with the Khangi Department and was never appointed Private Secretary. He was called very often for the writing of an important letter, order, despatch, correspondence with [the] British Government or other document; he assisted the Maharaja in preparing some of his speeches. At one time he was asked to instruct him in English grammar by Page 37 giving exact and minute rules ...
... not accompanied with vindictive personal cruelty. We remember a correspondent of an Anglo-Indian print at the time of Mr. Tilak's sentence calling on the Mahrattas to admire the leniency of the British Government, because it treated him as an ordinary felon instead of impaling him or sawing him to pieces. The Statesman writes in the same spirit. The second plea in defence of deportation is that no ...
... 1906 - 27.May.1907 Bande Mataram In Praise of the Government 13-May-1907 We cannot sufficiently admire the vigorous and unselfish efforts of the British Government to turn all India into a nation of Extremists. We had thought that it would take us long and weary years to convert all our countrymen to the Nationalist creed. Nothing of the kind. The Government ...
... give up agitating for political reform since our agitation is so obviously a failure and begin agitating for educational reform. It is a luminous idea. After having wasted a century begging the British Government to reform their administration, we are to waste another century begging them to reform their educational system,—with equal futility. The Government cannot give us a reformed and modern system ...
... force the bureaucracy to give up to us the control of education. Merely by attempting to expand some of our trades and industries, we shall not drive out the British exploiter or take from the British Government its sovereign power of regulating, checking or killing the growth of Swadeshi industries by the imposition of judicious taxes and duties and other methods always open to the controller of a country's ...
... leading Nationalists, those branded as Extremists, could not altogether shake off its influence. Only recently Srijut Bipin Chandra Pal at Rajamundry told his hearers that those who thought the British Government would crush us if we tried by passive resistance to make administration impossible, held too low an opinion of British character and British civilisation. We fancy Srijut Bipin Chandra watching ...
... by oppression which makes even wise men mad; full of passionate repining at their "more than Egyptian bondage", exasperated by bureaucratic reaction, despairing of redress at the hands of the British Government or the British nation, they are advocating an extreme attitude and extreme methods in a spirit of desperate impatience. The Extremist propaganda is, therefore, a protest against misgovernment ...
... which has swept the country forward is a force no man has created and which no man can control. As well ask a man who has become adult to return to the age of childhood as India Page The British Government is like Tarquin with the Sibyl; the terms it has refused will no longer be offered to it. It might have purchased contentment, a new lease of Indian confidence and a long spell of ease at a very ...
... in India must necessarily turn the machinery of judicial administration also to its advantage. We have observed on previous occasions that a certain portion of the positive laws enacted by the British Government has been designed not so much to secure the rights and interests of the people as to repress their free manhood. There is a popular saying that almost every action of a man can be construed as ...
... strength in the country except itself! Mr. Chaudhuri's policy would be an excellent one if he could only remove two factors from the political problem, first, Indian Nationalism, secondly, the British Government. And how does he propose to remove them? By shutting his eyes to their existence. Ignore the Government, dissociate yourselves from the men of violence—and the thing is done. Such is the political ...
... contends, was a got-up affair arranged by Mr. Tilak, and so its opinion has no value. The Mahomedans and Parsis will join the movement if the Nationalists are driven out and the British public and British Government are, according to Babu Bhupendranath Bose, an excellent authority, deeply interested in seeing the creed preserved. For all these reasons let the creed be preserved. We Page 927 wonder ...
... Western culture. On return to India, after deliberately absenting himself from the riding tests in the I.C.S. examination and thus getting disqualified for official co-operation with the British Government, the years that he spent in state service with the then Gaekwad of Baroda were used by him for literary self-development, mastery of Sanskrit as well as several modern Indian languages ...
... relations between the Government and the people, especially the Extremists, will be substantially improved, because the latter will have fully realised by then what Calcutta would be like if the British Government were actually "overthrown". We rather fancy the Empire has carefully forgotten to include two very important and indeed essential considerations in its amiable prosings on the orgy of hooliganism ...
... who were of all political opinions. Meetings were held and the leaders of the Moderate parties accepted it as a political weapon, as a means Page 839 of bringing pressure upon the British Government to annul the Partition. Everything had failed, our petitions and protests were not heard, so we wanted to bring pressure upon the British people. We thought that boycott was the only pressure ...
... throne. And with the popularity of the young King has gone the friendship of the Spanish nation for England, for the Spaniards accuse that friendship of the origination of these troubles and the British Government as the selfish instigators of the intervention in Morocco. The London Congress Since we made our remarks on the proposal of a Congress session in London, we have seen two reasons urged ...
... Conference appeals to the Government of India to act in the spirit of His Majesty's assurance in his recent message that the rectification of errors has ever been one of the guiding principles of British Government in India. IV. That this Conference urges the people to continue the Boycott of foreign goods which is, in its opinion, a perfectly legitimate movement and is calculated to promote the political ...
... civilly and politely, I must say — what I had been doing in Pondicherry in the house of that suspicious character.’ Madame David-Néel had a whole collection of letters of recommendation by the British government in her handbag, and the suspicions of the chief of police were soon put to rest. ‘[Aurobindo] certainly is a very remarkable scholar,’ he then said, ‘but he is a dangerous man. We hold him r ...
... Aravinda, for his father, from then onwards, sent his sons ‘the newspaper The Bengalee with passages marked relating maltreatment of Indians by Englishmen and he denounced in his letters the British Government in India as a heartless Government.’ 13 In the last year of his studies at St Paul’s, Aravinda joined the I.C.S. class, consisting of students who were preparing for the I.C.S. entrance ...
... they would throw us in jail! But it all worked out miraculously, almost becoming a 'diplomatic incident': the Japanese government decided that if we were put in prison they would protest to the British government! (What a story—I could write novels!) In short, Richard returned here with me. And that's when the tragi-comedy began.... I will tell you about it one day—fantastic! It was certainly Sri ...
... it's so true that there is nothing to say. "You [the body] need this to understand." Page 263 × The British government and press (the American press, too) have been outrageously anti-Indian. × It may be noted that ...
... promised to type out the new matter together with the old and pass everything back to Sri Aurobindo. Instead of doing this, he made a present of the original corrected pages to the spies of the British Government who in plain clothes were always hovering around the Ashram houses and seeking evidence to prove that Sri Aurobindo had not yet abandoned his political activity but was secretly continuing ...
... life like Bombay. I wrote a number of letters to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. One was in connection with a spell of danger to the Ashram brought about by some hostile elements in the British Government which wanted Sri Aurobindo dislodged from Pondicherry. Sri Aurobindo suspended correspondence with us for a fortnight in order to concentrate his Yogic Force on the situation. When the situation ...
... Nolini Kanta Gupta. Of those who are no more, Bejoy Kumar Nag was one — his name became Vijayakantan in Tamil. In order to escape from the clutches Page 20 of the British Government he had assumed the pseudonym Bankim Chandra Basik. Likewise, Suresh Chandra Chakravarti was known to the people of Pondicherry by one name alone: "Sakra". Sourindranath Bose went by his own name ...
... Kanta Gupta. Of those who are no more, Bejoy Kumar Nag was one — his name became Vijayakantan in Tamil. In order to escape from the clutches Page 20 of the British Government he had assumed the pseudonym Bankim Chandra Basik. Likewise, Suresh Chandra Chakravarti was known to the people of Pondicherry by one name alone: "Sakra". Sourindranath Bose went by his ...
... one of them is still here. His name is Nolini Kanta Gupta. Of those who are no more, Bejoy Kumar Nag was one — his name became Vijayakantan in Tamil. In order to escape from the clutches of the British Government he had assumed the pseudonym Bankim Chandra Basik. Likewise, Suresh Chandra Chakravarti was known to the people of Pondicherry by one name alone: “Sakra”. Sourindranath Bose went by his own name ...
... Ramakrishna mission and plunged into the nationalist struggle. If an unjust law was passed by an Indian Council or Assembly, she was the first to speak against it. She was not afraid of the British Government and spoke what was in her mind. Soon she came to be a great influence in Bengal. She was one of those patriots for whom the youth had great respect. She told them once, "The good of your country ...
... Page 403 affliction. And this is what we shall see exemplified in the passages below. But first a short introduction. On trumped-up charges of conspiracy and sedition against the British Government Sri Aurobindo, the then Principal of Bengal National College, was arrested on Friday, May 1, 1908 and put behind prison bars. After a successful defence put up by his friend, the famous barrister ...
... Indra Sen's Correspondence Indra Sen's Correspondence with The Mother 16 May 1946 (Regarding the Cabinet Mission Plan of the British Government to grant independence to India) After listening to today's broadcast, I was filled with gratitude towards the English people and then I thought of you and Sri Aurobindo, who have long worked for India's freedom ...
... Karmayogin refrained from political writings. As in the Bande Mataram, there were trenchant comments on political developments but the stress was on larger issues, moral and spiritual. The British Government, in an effort to placate Indian feelings, had come forward with some halfhearted proposals for political reforms, but as they did not really transfer any political power to India Sri Aurobindo ...
... Labour Party had come to power in Britain and they soon made it clear that they did not want to hold on to India at the cost of men and resources Britain could no longer afford. In March 1946, the British Government decided to send a Cabinet Mission to India to negotiate with Indian leaders for the eventual transfer of power to Indian hands. Sri Aurobindo was requested by the Amrita Bazar Patrika to give ...
... activity, averse to pushing himself forward. He had been ever inclined to work from behind other people. He said once, Page 169 by way of joke, that it was the British Government who dragged him out into publicity. He said to us that He never hankered for name or fame. When he was arrested the first time, for sedition, I was in Thana. Barin ...
... shipbuilding industry aroused the jealousy of British firms and its progress and development were restricted by legislation. India's metalwork, glass and paper industries were likewise throttled when British government in India was obliged to use only British-made paper. The vacuum created by the contrived ruin of the Indian handicraft industries, a process virtually completed by 1880, was filled with British ...
... trading group as it had started. As long as the Company's chief business was trade, it was left to manage its own affairs. But after Plassey, when the Company acquired territory, the British Government felt that a Regulating Act was necessary. With Pitt's India Act, a Board of Commissioners as a department of the English Government was created to exercise control over political, financial and ...
... Jinnah was an ardent champion of the Muslim cause. He started a movement claiming that the Muslims constituted a separate nation from the Hindus and he pursued it vigorously. In the meanwhile, the British government announced the Communal Award. There was a lot of discussion in the Congress party regarding the Communal Award and there were sharp differences within the party. In this Award, the seats allotted ...
... 1857. The mutiny ended a year later when The India Act (1858) was passed; this act abolished the East India Company and vested all power with Queen Victoria. From that time onwards, it was the British Government that governed India through the Indian Civil Service. However, the British were not the first Western power to come to India. They had to contend with the Portuguese and the French. ...
... a nation in the true sense of the word; it is a political unit manufactured and carved out by the accident of circumstances and deliberate planning by a section of the Muslim leadership, the British government and the shortsightedness of the Congress leaders. It is well known to all students of political science that the mere creation of a political unit is not enough to ensure its ...
... endowed her with a liberal attitude. She was Mahatma Gandhi's choice, along with Sarojini Naidu, to participate in the novel Salt Satyagraha in 1930 to make the British Page 83 Government responsive to the people's basic needs. It involved violating the law against making salt from seawater and touched the heart of millions of Indians. ...
... we were told that he was ill and had been kept in the jail hospItal. Kanai too was not much of a mixer. But we could sometimes hear him say, "Jail is not for me. I shall give the slip to the British Government." We used to laugh at his words. Let me mention here a somewhat similar incident about Sri Aurobindo. One day, as we sat in our cage in the court room, one of the more enterprising sentries ...
... would take us straight to Fort William and finish us off with Page 25 a firing squad! I was in fact getting myself ready for that. But things turned out rather differently. The British Government could not be so heartless after all. We were taken to the lock-up at the Lai Bazar police station. There, they kept us for nearly two days and nights. This was perhaps the most trying time ...
... are of this type ; and the other twists everything. My brother Manmohan had this persecution mania; he was always in fear of something terrible happening to him. He used to think that the British Government was going to arrest him! Disciple : But he was a very successful professor; I heard that people used to listen to his lectures with rapt attention. Sri Aurobindo : He was very ...
... are of this type—and the other twists everything. My brother had this persecution mania. He was always in fear of something terrible happening to him. For instance, he used to think that the British Government was going to arrest him. DR. BECHARLAL: He was a very successful professor, I hear. People used to listen to his lectures with rapt attention. SRI AUROBINDO: He was very painstaking. Most ...
... Madras. PURANI: Sir Sikandar Hussain has tried to make a division of India into martial races, like those of the Punjab, and non-martial races. SRI AUROBINDO: That division was made by the British Government purposely to conquer and keep India down. They got the Pathans, Gurkhas and Punjabis to enter the army and make up the bulk of it. But every part of India had its empire in the past. AlI India ...
... officers is no longer valid. SRI AUROBINDO: Of course they are justified now. If the Government had sided with the British, many of the regulations would have been relaxed. SATYENDRA: The British Government has consented to buy one lakh tons of Indian sugar subject to the approval of the International Sugar Committee. SRI AUROBINDO: Good Lord! SATYENDRA: But where is the International Committee ...
... AUROBINDO: Communism is the proletariat State—no dictatorship, though Stalin is a dictator but he doesn't call himself that. Otherwise they are the same. DR. RAO: The trouble in India is that the British Government has not kept a single promise so far. So nobody trusts it. SRI AUROBINDO: The fact is that the British don't trust India [to] help them if she is given Dominion Status. Otherwise they would ...
... AUROBINDO: Good Lord! PURANI: In reply to Malaviya who had asked him not to fast whatever else he might do, Gandhi said that if he was inspired by God, he might or must. SRI AUROBINDO: The British Government ought to set up somebody to fast against him— (laughter) not to give up his fast till Gandhi stops. NIRODBARAN: Linlithgow is returning, it seems. SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. PURANI: They talk ...
... terroristic movement was to prepare the young men with some sort of a military training, to kill and get killed. Otherwise it was never my idea that by throwing a few bombs we could overthrow the British Government. And that probably was the reason for the split among them. P. Mitra was for original idea while Barin was for this terrorism. I was never in direct contact with the movement nor with the young ...
... popular support. So in the end they come to a compromise. France also comes to a compromise but takes a longer time. Some other nations won't hesitate to go to the extreme limit. In Palestine the British Government almost succeeded. in. crushing the terrorists. If they had persisted they could have put Nashishibi against the Mufti and ruled the Arabs by the Arabs. But they could not go on and have now called ...
... My Life. ( Laughter ) EVENING SRI AUROBINDO: What is the condition of Narvik? It seems to be a mystery. PURANI: They say is is in British hands. SRI AUROBINDO: Who are they? The British Government? The Germans say it is in their hands. The Brithsh have occupied some islands north of Narvik. In that case they will take a long time to come to the South. NIRODBARAN: Chamberlain says they ...
... last clause of the Government resolution which says that no further political development should be made without the full consent of the minorities. Nehru and Sir Stafford Cripps say that the British Government is not trying for democracy. SRI AUROBINDO: Then for what? PURANI: For its own self-interest. SRI AUROBINDO: That is ancient history. NIRODBARAN: Cripps seems to justify Russia's ...
... be more characteristic of him to say, "I like Nehru but he is wicked in this matter." NIRODBARAN: He may also say that Russia has dared invade because Congress has withdrawn support to the British Government. SRI AUROBINDO: That won't be communal enough. He will say Congress has invited Russia in to suppress and oppress the Muslims. PURANI (after a lull) : Saravan has been accepted for military ...
... aeroplanes and machine-guns, etc., armed revolution would be crushed in no time. NIRODBARAN: Perhaps the aim of the revolutionaries is not so much to fight the British army as to intimidate the British Government. SRI AUROBINDO: A small number of revolutionaries won't intimidate the Government. Even if they succeed, the Government will not give independence but Dominion Status, which they are willing ...
... heads on one body? Why two only? As the Hindu points out, there are other minorities that can also claim to be separate nations—five or six heads! PURANI: Vallabhbhai Patel says that the British Government is keeping up the division by playing one party against the other. SRI AUROBINDO: What else does he expect? So long as there are different parties, the Government will act like that. If they ...
... under compulsion is violence. There is no compulsion unless there is violence. PURANI: He says a child has to be forced to do good things and that this wouldn't be violence. But then the British Government can say that it is for our good that they are doing all these things, that it is they who have given unity to India. SRI AUROBINDO: That is true. Only, the trouble is, we haven't got that ...
... this -was quite informal, Sri Aurobindo being usually invited to breakfast with the Maharaja and staying on to do the work entrusted to him, — like the writing of an order, or a letter to the British Government, or some other important memorandum. Once Sri Aurobindo was specially sent for to Ootacamund in order to prepare a précis of the whole Bapat case and the judicial opinions on it. At ...
... early decade of this century. He had been jailed by the British, but they could not bring enough evidence against him to satisfy the judge. So, after one year in prison, he was released. But the British government did not give up. They soon got ready to rearrest Sri Aurobindo on some other trumped-up charges. It was then that Sri Aurobindo quietly left Calcutta and went away to Pondicherry, not only to ...
... for 'gander' is rhino. So go and give them the news: 'Sending one thousand rhinos'. Knowledge of English is very important, Haripada, Page 140 very important. Do you think the British government made me postmaster just like that? You can become a postmaster only if you know a lot of English.' 'That's very right and true, sir.' Over at the Army camp there was utter confusion ...
... certain "something” containing the seeds of humanity’s next cycle. What kind of wind was it then blowing over the earth? What more radical sedition was brewing? It is not a revolt against the British Government which any one can easily do, Sri Aurobindo would soon say. It is, in fact, a revolt against the whole universal Nature. 22 And Mother was still marveling in 1972, just one year before ...
... know in practising Yoga daily and the philosophy was there automatically. But that is not being a philosopher 26 VI Ever since Sri Aurobindo came to Pondicherry in 1910 , the British Government in India had tried by any means whatsoever to get him back into their clutches. Kidnapping was tried, and failed - mainly because 'Mony, Bejoy, Nolini and the other young men were always an ...
... more confused than before. While Gandhiji and the Congress leaders advised only withholding of support to the British war effort in India, the INA asked for active all-out resistance to the British Government in India. This was a further serious complicating factor, and as the first months of 1942 registered a series of spectacular Japanese victories, many in India - in their flawed knowledge ...
... come in the end with a compromise. France comes to a compromise, but takes a much longer time. But Germany or Italy can't hesitate to go to the extreme limit. For instance, in Palestine, the British Government have almost succeeded in crushing the terrorists. If they had persisted they could have easily put Nahashiby against the Mufti and rule the Arabs by the Arabs. But they could not go on and now ...
... force which he has set in motion. At the beginning of this century, when India was still struggling against British domination, Sri Aurobindo declared : "It is not a revolt against the British Government... (which is needed), it is, in fact, a revolt against the whole universal Nature." 1 For the problem is fundamental. It is not a question of bringing a new philosophy to the world nor ...
... performed and the sense of our species. Sri Aurobindo said to that old revolutionary Purani, who must have been quite young, then, perhaps about my age: It is not a revolt against the British government, which anyone can easily do. It is, in fact, a revolt against the whole universal Nature . Just imagine! This really was becoming quite an interesting challenge. How would Spartacus ...
... Pakistan) on 15 August. Page 260 perversions of what had once been Englishmen! Need we be surprised now that all Anglo-India, all the higher echelons of the bureaucracy, the British Government itself, all gnashed their teeth, fumed in impotent fury, and vowed that the culprit who, veiling himself behind editorial anonymity, could perpetrate such offences against decorum, throw spoonfuls ...
... one stroke and helped me in my path, pointed to the yogāśram staying as Guru and companion in my little abode of retirement and spiritual discipline.... The only result of the wrath of the British Government was that I found God. 13 But this of course of Government couldn't know, and certainly it wouldn't ever have come into their calculations. They had got their man, and they wished to see ...
... India to find her own Swaraj and then, like Ireland, to work out her salvation even with violence - preferably without violence. Our basis must be broader than that of mere opposition to the British Government. Page 530 All the time our eyes are turned to the British and their actions. We must look to ourselves irrespectively of them, and having found our own nationhood, make it ...
... By 1903 —actually before that —Sri Aurobindo got more and more drawn into the vortex of all-India politics, and took long leaves of absence to go to Calcutta which was then the seat of the British Government. Three years later he gave up his 'safe' Baroda job and dove head foremost into the uncertain turbulence of politics. Sri Aurobindo's sweetness and affection had filled the hearts of his ...
... based on quality — varnāshrama — became a rigid caste system based on birth, which was sharply criticized by Sri Aurobindo. He denounced even more sharply the caste-based politics which the British government introduced. Customs petrified into laws. This petrification weakened the nation. The weakened old culture became dislocated and broke into regional fragments under the shock of the Mahomedan ...
... He sent money whenever he could. He had to be so very careful not to let anybody know about his help to a revolutionary. And what a revolutionary! The 'most dangerous man' according to the British government. If K. Y. R. was caught proffering his assistance to such a revolutionary it would spell danger for him. He was a big landholder, was K. Y. R. ; and as an elected member of British State council ...
... college in England. He was therefore amply qualified to evaluate the education as it was imparted in India. Its calculated poverty, its antinational character, its inculcation of loyalty to the British Government, proved that its aim was to churn out clerks and low-rung bureaucrats. Quite apparent to him were the disastrous effects of the system on body, mind and character of the Indians. These effects ...
... will go there later for a fuller visit. "Those who tried most to stop Sri Aurobindo from settling down and were ever on the alert to move him from his seat were the British authorities. The British Government in India could never accept that Sri Aurobindo had come away to French territory for carrying on his yoga. Religion and spirituality, these to them were a mere subterfuge. They thought they knew ...
... 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 ...
... who took care of him, while Sri Aurobindo himself remained "plunged into solitary meditation. Though inwardly absorbed, he continued to follow the outward events as they unfolded." The Indo-British government would not so easily give up its quarry. Could he then "pass the better part of my life as an undertrial prisoner ..."? No. God had other plans for him. Sri Aurobindo again received a Command: ...
... the writing of an important letter, composing public speeches, writing 'many memoranda' along the lines he gave, drawing up documents of various kinds —order, dispatch, correspondence with the British Government —which needed special care in the phrasing of the language. Let work of a literary or educational character but come up, the Maharaja would at once send for A. Ghose to prepare it. At one time ...
... given the sole power. PURANI: Perhaps the Viceroy is coming down now. The Times comment suggests that. Have you seen it? It says that Jinnah's demands are unreasonable. That may be the British Government's view too. SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, the Times is their official organ. PURANI: There is a reason too. It seems Russia and Japan are trying to come to a settlement. In that case they may have ...
... His Govt. had perhaps the delusion that Sri Aurobindo would welcome the Himalyan retreat as most suitable for his spiritual pursuits. British Government's next move to have Sri Aurobindo extradited by: the French Government in Paris also failed. Took a big lump of opium in order again to test his mastery of bodily functions. No reaction. 19I7 ... hardships. Constant police surveillance continued till 1937. Contact with revolutionaries like Subramaniya Bharati, the famous Tamil poet-patriot. 1912 British Government's plan to kidnap Sri Aurobindo; its failure. I9I4 March 29: Mother's arrival at Pondicherry; her first meeting with Sri Aurobindo. Her momentous discovery of the Saviour... physical culture activities, stating o f agricultural and dairy farms. All these happened despite various acute hardships due to the war. 1942 March 31 : British Government's offer to congress leaders through Sir Stafford Cripps. Sri Aurobindo's Public declaration of support to it. Sent his personal envoy to the Congress Working Committee giving ...
... bloody riots follow in Bengal and Bihar. 1946,Sept. 2 - Formation of the Interim Government, which the Muslim League joins a month later. 1947,March 24 - Lord Mountbatten is the new Viceroy. 1947, June -On the 3 rd , Mountbatten announces the British government's final decision to grant India independence on the basis of partition; on the 14 th , the Congress... 1930-1932 -Three Round Table Conferences with, in August 1932, the Communal Award which hardens divisions between Hindus and Muslims. Savage repression of the Civil Disobedience Movement by the British ruler 1937 - Formation of Congress ministries in the Provinces. 1938, Nov. 24 -Sri Aurobindo breaks his leg while walking in concentration. Page 258 ... 1919-1920 -Beginning of the Khilafat and non-cooperation movements under the growing leadership of Mahatma Gandhi. 1920 - Sri Aurobindo turns down several offers to return to British India and to active politics. 1920, April 24 - Mother returns to Pondicherry from Japan. 1920, Aug.1 - Lokmanya Tilak passes away. 1920, October - Dr ...
... patriotic sons of Mother India, which spun round the murder of a British civilian officer, came to be known as 'Ashe Murder Case'. It occupies a place of honor in the history of the Indian Freedom Movement. Robert W. D. E. Ashe, a member of the Indian Civil Service (ICS, also known as the 'Steel Frame' of the British Indian Government) and a tradition-bound Britisher was then the sub-collector... hounded and hunted by the British Indian Police. The friendly quiet beautiful small town gave political asylum to great freedom fighters like Aurobindo Ghosh; V. V. S. Iyer, a lawyer turned rebel who trained men in armed combat and guerrilla warfare; and Mahakavi Subramaniam Bharati, the great rebel poet of India whose works in Tamil were banned by the British Indian Government. Many publications in English... Ghosh, then the idol of Indian youth. Soon he moved to Pondicherry where he published a Tamil magazine 'Suryodaya'. The British Indian government promptly proscribed it in March 1910. He ran other publications too which were also banned but he managed to circulate copies in British India with the help of friends some of whom were accused in this case. He also worked on other plans and methods to promote ...
... under British rule; only then could it take the next step and take to heart the fact that British rule and increasing poverty stood in the relation of cause and effect; last of all comes the inevitable conclusion that the effect could only be cured by the removal of the cause, in other words by the substitution of autonomy in place of a British or British-controlled Page 203 Government. Mr... letters and writings in public print. Remonstrance, not action, was the note of our political energies in the past. Action was, according to the old gospel, the prerogative of the Government whether in India or in Great Britain and our only duty was to urge them to act justly and not unjustly, in our interests and not in their own. We expected them to be angels and remonstrated with them when they proved... season on all who could be got to listen,—the terrible poverty of India and its rapid increase under British rule. It was necessary that a persistent voice should din this into the ears of the people; for what with the incessant pratings about British peace, British justice and the blessings of British rule on the one side and the clamour for Legislative Councils, Simultaneous Examinations, High Education ...
... and experiences of Aurobindo Ghose. Aravinda Akroyd Ghose was born in Calcutta, in 1872, the son of a medical doctor in the service of the British colonial government and a convinced anglophile. He wanted his children to be educated according to the British model and let them speak only English and Hindustani at home; Aravinda would not learn his mother tongue until many years later. In 1879 Dr Ghose... father wanted him to be: a member of the prestigious Indian Civil Service (I.C.S.), five thousand of whom ruled over three hundred million Indians. Having gradually turned into an opponent of the British colonial regime, Aravinda deliberately failed the horse-riding test and was therefore disqualified as a candidate for the I.C.S. In 1893 he became, apparently quite by accident, a functionary in... meet an Indian yogi. In this he had been extraordinarily lucky, for Aurobindo Ghose, the well-known freedom fighter turned yogi, had just arrived in Pondicherry, looking for a safe haven from the British authorities who wanted to arrest him, “the most dangerous man in India”, at any cost. Richard had been deeply impressed by Aurobindo Ghose and had told his wife about him. The reason she accompanied ...
... the case would have finished long ago." Much to the chagrin of Prosecutor Norton, and the British Indian Government, Judge Beachcroft proceeded to acquit Sri Aurobindo. Here is an extract from the report of a dashed F. C. Dally, Deputy Inspector General, Special Branch, to the Chief Secretary of the Government of Bengal, F. W. Duke, on the moment all had been expecting for the past twelve months:... against His Majesty the King-Emperor of India;" it was to conspire "to deprive His Majesty the King-Emperor of India of the Sovereignty of British India or a part thereof ..."; it was "to overawe by criminal force the Government of India or the Local Government of Bengal," etc. But all men are not alike. There were those who had courage. Among them was Bejoy Krishna Bose, who appeared for the... Subodh Mullick, Manoranjan Guha Thakurta were among them; they were unceremoniously packed off to distant jails or even overseas, and kept imprisoned without trial for more than one year. There's British justice for you! Chittaranjan Das (1870-1925) —later known as Deshban-dhu (Friend of the Country)—was then thirty-eight years old, and a rising barrister. He was the son of Attorney Bhuban Mohan ...
... debt of gratitude to the Mother's brother, for it was his indirect intervention in the Colonial Office of the French Government at Paris that went a long way towards removing a very great threat to the Ashram's existence, brought about by the manipulation of the British India Government. I come now to the last of her day's activities that I have witnessed as well as heard about from others. It was... be run by the Ashram inmates. We had at that time made some connection with the Hyderabad Government through Sir Akbar Hydari who was instrumental in, procuring a donation from the Nizam's Government for Golconde, hence the name 3 . This connection opened the channel for an experienced officer of the Government to come and give a start to our Press. As soon as things began moving, the Mother put all... more brisk exercise in the open air. She often talked of her project to Sri Aurobindo. One day we heard that the entire wasteland along the north-eastern seaside was taken on a long lease from the Government and a part of it would be made into tennis courts and the rest into a playground. One cannot imagine now what this place was like before. It was one of the filthiest spots of Pondicherry, full of ...
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