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... ignoble attempt had been made to retreat from the Calcutta stand of December 1906, at Surat too - and on a much bigger scale - the Moderate leaders tried to whittle down the Calcutta resolutions. The agenda with the draft resolutions was made available only at the eleventh hour, and was found to embody serious deviations from and dilutions of the Calcutta resolutions, whereas the Nationalists wanted... the Calcutta Congress (1906) and succeeded, while still keeping out of the platform and hence out of the headlines as well, in getting the organisation to be, not "national" only in name, but also in some measure, alike in the tempo of its proceedings and in the substance and language of its resolutions, really "national" in its thinking and policy-making. The unanimity reached at Calcutta was... Act, Dadabhai Naoroji introduces to the assembled delegates in Calcutta the "Lady Congress": Much have I laboured, toiled for many years To see this glorious day. Our Lady Congress Grown to a fair and perfect womanhood, Who at Benares came of age, is now With pomp and noble ceremony arrived In this Calcutta to assume the charge Of her own life into her proper hands ...

... of India was at Calcutta, and Bengal was under a Lieutenant-Governor- not, like the Bombay and Madras Presidencies, under a Governor. Bengal had always been in the vanguard .of the Indian renaissance, and some of the finest, some of the most fearless, some of the most intrepid minds of the time - patriots, poets, lawyers, editors, educationists - were then concentrated at Calcutta. Curzon could do... in Calcutta. In the nineteenth century, the 'Bengal' administration had included present-day West Bengal and East Bengal (Bangla Desh), and Bihar (including Chota Nagpur), Assam and Orissa. Even when Assam was formed (along with some Bengali border areas like Sylhet, Cachar and Goalpara) as a separate province, residuary Bengal - with its population of nearly 80 millions looking up to Calcutta for... have appeared as the cruel and wanton insolence behind the "partition" operation. So successful indeed was e agitation in its first flush that for a time the Calcutta warehouses were full of fabrics that couldn't be sold. The Englishman of Calcutta soon felt concerned enough to warn the Government against acquiescing in the "boycott" programme, for it must "more surely ruin the British connection with ...

... fever there and returned. Now it occurred to Barin that a miniature Bhavani Mandir should be started in Calcutta to translate into action the vitriolic policies propagated by the Yugantar. There was a piece of family property, the Manicktolla Gardens, in Murari Pukur Bagan in north Calcutta, and Barin decided to move there and start operations. It was a wild place, about two and a half acres... majority to flout national opinion as it had crystallised earlier at the Calcutta Congress. The election of Rash Behari Ghosh as president was itself open to criticism on procedural grounds. But Sri Aurobindo added: We are ready to condone this irregularity if a united Congress is to be held on the basis of the Calcutta resolutions. If the other party does not accept, the responsibility of... greater efficiency, but also with an impulsion of irresistibility. By mid-1906, Sri Aurobindo had decided to leave Baroda service and take the overt plunge into the political maelstrom. He was in Calcutta now, teaching at the National College, editing the Bande Mataram, welding the scattered Nationalists in the Congress into a militant party, and secretly keeping in touch with the revolutionary ...

... Deoghar. Restored to health, Sri Aurobindo returned to Calcutta well in time to attend the annual session of the Congress, which was to be held on 26 December. It is difficult to recapture at this distance of time the phenomenal impact the Bande Mataram made on the English-knowing intelligentsia in Bengal and all India. In Calcutta, there were well-established Anglo-Indian papers like... the de facto editorship of the Bande Mataram, the first major issue that he had editorially to tackle was the forthcoming session of the Congress in Calcutta. Presently he fell ill, and made a brief trip to Deoghar. Back in Calcutta, Sri Aurobindo took stock of things and tried to mobilise the Nationalist (or "extremist") elements in readiness for the Congress session from 26 to 29 December... three decades preceding, but it became a truly effective weapon only from 7 August 1905 when it was adopted at the Calcutta Town Hall meeting to the fanfare of Bande Mataram singing and tempestuous cheers. Earlier, in February-March one Tahal Ram Ganga Ram had visited Calcutta and exhorted college students to organise a boycott of British goods; on 13 July, Sri Aurobindo's maternal uncle ...

... Panthi's Math, Calcutta. April 12 Speech at Baruipur. April 18 "Palli Samiti" speech at Kishoregung. April 28 Changes his Calcutta lodging from 23 Scotts lane to 48 Grey Street (Navashakti 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... May 6 Acquitted and released. After his release and until February 1910, Sri Aurobindo stays at 6 College Square, Calcutta. May 14 Letter to the Bengalee, Calcutta. May 30 Speech at Uttarpara. June 13 Speech at Beadon Square, Calcutta. June 19 First issue of the Karmayogin, a weekly review directed and mostly written by Sri Aurobindo. Speech at... October 10 Speech at College Square, Calcutta. October 13 "Swadeshi in Calcutta" speech. October 18 Durga Stotra published in the Dharma. November 20-December 25 The National Value of Art in the Karmayogin. December 25 "To My Countrymen" in the Karmayogin. 1910 — February Leaves Calcutta for Chandernagore in French India. February ...

... and Nagen respectfully took leave of Sri Aurobindo and Bejoy, and the steamer sailed out of Calcutta well past midnight. In the meantime, Suresh Chakravarti (Moni) - who had been asked by Sri Aurobindo to proceed to Pondicherry in advance and make some arrangements for his stay - had left Calcutta by train on 28 March. He had disguised himself as an Anglo-Indian, and was seen off by Sukumar... wired to Calcutta on 9 April that Sri Aurobindo had arrived at Pondicherry by SS. Dupleix on the morning of 6th April and was received by Srinivasachariar and the India people. On 13 April, the irrepressible Papu Rao wired again that Sri Aurobindo and Ajit Singh were at Pondicherry, and somebody might be sent to identify the men. By 17 April, the dossier was fairly complete at Calcutta. The C.I... because there had been some last minute "difficulty about money". Then came the welcome news to Calcutta that Sri Aurobindo had been identified at Pondicherry by comparison with the "Simla photo". 1 Before leaving Chandernagore, Sri Aurobindo had answered one of the anonymous letters addressed to his Calcutta residence asking him to come out into the open by saying that, after all, there was no public ...

... and died uttering Aurobindo's name in lamentation. 1 A slightly different recital of events occurs in Brajendranth De's Reminiscences of an Indian Member of I.C.S that appeared in 1954 in The Calcutta Review. Till the end Dr. Krishnadhan had believed that his son had been admitted into the Service and had, in fact, gone to Bombay to receive him and bring him home in triumph. Unable to get any... brothers too arrived, though later; Benoy Bhushan was to serve under the   Page 45 Maharaja of Cooch-Behar, and Manomohan was to become Professor of English at the Presidency College, Calcutta. The prodigal boys returned home at long last, Sri Aurobindo first, the others later; they were now stalwart young men, well-set apparently in life — but Dr. Krishnadhan's strong heroic soul had... full of wit and humour and gentleness and infinite understanding. The latter part of the letter shows that Benoy Bhushan and Manomohan were still in England (though they were expected any day in Calcutta), and that Sri Aurobindo was trying to learn in real earnest both Bengali and Gujarati. The letter concludes with a reference to his recent birthday ("I have just passed my twenty-second milestone ...

... bombed Pearl Harbour, and on 11 December Hitler declared war against America. Japan also turned against the British, French and Dutch possessions Page 703 in the Far East, bombed Calcutta, Visakhapatnam and Madras, and extended the war in the Pacific. Now it was truly a world war. And Britain didn't stand alone any longer; Russia and America were with her. Just as Sri Aurobindo... that the Allies had won the war in Europe as well as against Japan, he had no reason to be satisfied with the divisive developments in India. The situation in Bengal - as a result of the riots in Calcutta and Noakhali - particularly distressed him, and he wrote to a correspondent on 19 October 1946 that, although things were bad and might become worse, "we must not let our reaction to it become ... (Bangla Desh) on the night of 25 March 1971. And the mad Rake's progress of genocide went on for eight months, and it was a singular circumstance that Sri Aurobindo's birthplace in Theatre Road, Calcutta , should become for the nonce "Mujib Nagar" - after Bandhu Mujibur Rehman in Pak custody - and keep the embers of Bangla freedom alive during all those doleful and daring months. And since the appetite ...

... Morley had correctly evaluated the consequences of "excess of severity". The burning anger of the people was particularly directed against one D.H. Kingsford, the District Magistrate of Calcutta who had tried the case against Upadhyaya, - who was even otherwise known for his drastic sentences against the patriots, and who had especially earned undying infamy by ordering the flogging in... fifteen, Sushil Sen, till he fell down unconscious bleeding all over. This last atrocity had so horrified the country and evoked such a storm of protest that Kingsford had to be transferred from Calcutta to Muzzaferpore (now in Bihar). But the revolutionaries had their eyes upon him, and decided to visit him with swift punishment there. On the evening of 30 April 1908, two boys - Khudiram Bose and... and daughter of a local advocate, as they were going out in the carriage from their Club. On 1 May, as Sri Aurobindo was sitting in the   Page 305 office of the Bande Mataram in Calcutta, the wire from Muzzaferpore was shown to him. Sri Aurobindo also read in the Empire that the Police Commissioner had said that they knew who were in the murder plot, and they would all be arrested ...

... secret. The young men started for Calcutta in the morning so as not to give room for suspicion.* At first, Motilal arranged for Sri Aurobindo's stay in the drawing room, he was then shifted to a more secluded place in the first floor of the house. Thus, with a single firm gesture of withdrawal, Sri Aurobindo had succeeded in shaking off the dust of Calcutta and politics, and finding a temporary... some months after Sri Aurobindo's departure from Calcutta, they had eventually to be closed down. The police were after the young men associated with the journals, who decided accordingly to disperse and make themselves scarce. Of the three permanent residents at the Shyampukur office, Suresh took refuge in the Tagore family, Bejoy disappeared in Calcutta, and Nolini found a temporary asylum in the house... period in India and the Yoga period in Pondicherry. From Chandernagore Sri Aurobindo could have returned to Calcutta; he preferred rather to proceed to Pondicherry. Superficially, of course, Sri Aurobindo left for Pondicherry because Chandernagore was too inconveniently and dangerously near Calcutta, the storm-centre of the Indian political world of those days; at distant Pondicherry, he would not be as ...

... leader should make little difference to its deliberation and decisions. At the Calcutta special Congress presided over by Lajpat Rai, the resolution on non-cooperation was passed by the delegates, 1886 voting for it and 884 against. If some of the leaders felt that Nagpur would reverse the Calcutta decision, they were doomed to disappointment. C. Vijayaraghavachariar of Salem presided over... Courts and of the educational institutions) seemed to make the Gandhian programme no more than an exercise in derailing the national movement from its main political course. The special Congress at Calcutta would no doubt take a first look at the problem in September, but the issue would be finally settled only at Nagpur. Hence the importance of the Nagpur Congress Presidentship. On Sri Aurobindo's... nameless, on the occult planes. Advocate S. Doraiswami Aiyar from Madras, W. W. Pearson from Shantiniketan, Dr. Moonje from Nagpur, Colonel Wedgewood from Britain, and Saraladevi Chaudhurani from Calcutta were among the more important visitors at this time, and the talks must have covered a very wide range. There is a record of the conversation with Saraladevi, which throws light on Sri Aurobindo's ...

... very noble building", was not far from Calcutta but "quite in ruins". Nevertheless Krishnadhan, although "living almost entirely by charity of friends", by his "superhuman perseverance" had a meritorious school and college career. 2 He passed the Entrance Examination of the Calcutta University from the local school in 1858 and then proceeded to the Calcutta Medical College. When he was in his fourth... thickly populated area, almost a small town, in the Hooghly district; situated on the west bank of the river Hooghly (otherwise known as the Bhagirathi), it is about eleven miles to the north of Calcutta. Konnagar is apparently a place of considerable antiquity, for it is mentioned in old Bengali literature. The Mitras and the Ghoses of Konnagar have carved out creditable names for themselves in... caught Thou hast not lost thy special brightness. Power Remains with thee and the old genial force Unseen for blinding light, not darkly lurks... 5 When Krishnadhan Ghose left Calcutta for Great Britain in 1869 to undergo a course of advanced medical studies, it was his father-in-law's earnest wish that the young sojourner in the West would not allow himself to be too easily dazzled ...

... Aurobindo's active and open participation in Indian politics was of a much shorter duration: a period of no more than three years and a half, from August 1906 when he joined the National College at Calcutta as its Principal to February 1910 when he left for Chandernagore in French India. Of this period, again, a whole year (May 1908 to May 1909) was spent in jail at Alipur when Sri Aurobindo was an... the whole character of political activity in India and set the freedom movement firmly towards the goal of complete national independence. But of course, both before and even after the hectic Calcutta period, Sri Aurobindo was involved in - or at least deeply concerned with - the tenor and tempo of political life in the country (and the world); and whether from behind the scenes as in the Baroda... Bengali") on Bankim Chandra Chatterji, although the interest was mainly literary, the political slant too revealed itself sharply, for example in a passage like the following: Page 184 Calcutta is yet a stronghold of the Philistines; officialdom is honey-combed with the antinational tradition: in politics and social reform the workings of the new movement are yet obscure... [but] already ...

... thus became - with its branches at various centres - the instrument of enveloping action hastening the advent of a "progressive universal harmony". Besides, there was the Sri Aurobindo Pathmandir at Calcutta, with its continuing record of meritorious work; there was the Sri Aurobindo Library at Madras and there was the Sri Aurobindo Circle at Bombay; and by 1956, there were about 150 Sri Aurobindo Study... We have seen how, with the coming of children to the Ashram during the war, there arose the necessity to open a school, which was inaugurated on 2 December 1943. Then, on account of the Calcutta killings and other sanguinary riots during 1946-7, the Mother introduced physical education for adults as well. But behind these developments there were other germinating ideas too. Surendra Mohan... consonance with India's native traditions and also her peculiar present needs. His educational idealism stretched towards new dimensions during his brief spell of Principalship of the National College at Calcutta, and later during the years of silent Yoga at Pondicherry. Thus, from the very beginning, there was no question of the Ashram School mechanically adopting the norms of the outside schools. It was ...

... of Divine Guidance and Divine Protection are, however, the indispensable élan in all Gurukulas and Ashrams. When young men were first drawn to Sri Aurobindo - at Baroda, and later at Calcutta - it was because he was the apostle of Nationalism and the high-priest of the revolutionary movement. There was, of course from the first a visionary look in his eyes, which struck everyone; they... Aurobindonian, Rishabhchand, joined the Ashram in February 1931. He had suspended his studies in college during Gandhiji's non-cooperation movement, and had then started the firm 'India Silk House' at Calcutta; but finding the lure of Yoga irresistible, he had shaken off the cares of family and business and boarded the "celestial omnibus" to Pondicherry. Once there, he never left it; a demure, scholarly... is preparing a light, don't come in with a wet blanket of despondency and throw it on the poor flame. 89 Welt, Chesterton, Shaw and others joust at each other like the kabiwalas of old Calcutta, though with more refined weapons, and you cannot take their humorous sparrings as considered appreciations; if you do, you turn exquisite jests into solemn nonsense. 90 Well, well, this ...