Surat : is believed to have been founded by a Brahmin named Gopi, who named the area Surajpur or Suryāpur. A Greek writer relates how in the reign of Euergetes II (145-116 BC) the Greek ruler of Egypt, a merchant ship from Bharuch in bay of Khambhāt lost its course & reached Egypt with all but one of its crew dead out of hunger. Another Greek writer relates how a group of Indians merchants sailing from Suevi (Surat?) had been driven by storms into Germany. In the 1st century AD trade between India & the West was greatly facilitated when Greek-Egyptian navigator discovered how to lay his course straight across the ocean along the coasts of the Red Sea & the Arabian Sea, & recorded a minute account of his experiences in a book called The Periplus of the Erytharean Sea. The land & sea routes connecting the commercial cities on the bay of Khambhāt with Europe were first appropriated by Arabs (q.v.) then the Moghuls. Akbar captured Surat in 1573 by evicting the Portuguese. Despite prospering under the Moghuls, Surat looked like a typical “grubby” trader’s town with mud-and-bamboo tenements & crooked streets; although along the riverfront there were a few mansions & warehouses belonging to local merchant princes & the establishments of Turkish, Armenian, English, French & Dutch traders. There were also vetenary hospitals run by religious Jains! Some streets were narrow while others were of sufficient width. In 1630-32, in the 4th & 5th year of Shah Jahan’s rule, an appalling famine of the most severe type desolated Deccan & Gujarat. The chief ports of Moghul India were Sindh’s Lahori Bunder & Gujarat’s Surat, Bharuch, & Khambhāt. In January 1664 Shivaji sacked Surat, & by 1680, the entire coast from Surat in the north to Kārwār in south was part of the Maratha Empire. Surat became the emporium of India, exporting gold & cloth. Its major industries were shipbuilding & textile manufacture. The coast of the Tapti River, from Athwalines to Dumas, was specially meant for shipbuilders, who were usually Rassis. Afterwards, Surat’s shipbuilding industry declined & Surat itself gradually declined throughout the 18th century. In 1790-1, an epidemic killed 100,000 Gujaratis in Surat. In 1800, Richard Colley, Gov.-Gen. 1798-1805, the most successful of ruthless imperialists of the E.I. Co. ordered the rulers of Thanjāvur & Surat to surrender their administrative powers & remain content with ‘empty titles’& ‘guaranteed pensions’. In 1842 Dalhousie’s Doctrine of Lapse swallowed Surat. One of the major issues at the 1907 Surat Congress was the election of the president of the session. The Mehta cabal nominated Rash Behari Ghose (q.v.), the Nationalists proposed Lālā Lajpat Rai who surprisingly withdrew. On 24 December Sri Aurobindo presided over a closed-door meeting of the nationalists & called upon the delegates to make the Congress a body focused on work instead of opinion. The whole aim, Tilak pointed out, was to see that the Congress did not slide back from the Calcutta position. As the draft resolution was not available even a day before the conference, a very unusual thing, the suspicion grew stronger. On the 26th morning, the day of the conference, Tilak along with Sri Aurobindo & some others met Surendranath who asked them to meet Mālvi, Chairman of the Reception Committee. Mālvi declined to meet Tilak. On 27th at 2.30 p.m. Rash Behari Ghosh & Moderate leaders ascended the podium. Ambalal Desai proposed Dr Ghosh take the Chair. As soon as Surendranath Banerji stood up to second the proposal, his words were drowned in an ear-splitting chorus of protest. The greatest orator of the then Bengal, the pied piper of many a rally, had the jolt of his life. Henry Nevinson: “Waving their arms, their scarves, their sticks, & umbrellas, a solid mass of delegates & spectators on the right of the Chair sprang up to their feet & shouted without a moment’s pause….the whole 10,000 were on their feet, shouting for order, shouting for tumult. Mr Mālvi still half in the chair, rang his brass Benares bell & rang in vain. Surendranath sprang on the very table itself. Even a voice like his was not a whisper in the din. Again & again he shouted, unheard as silence.... Again he sprang on the table & again the assembly roared with clamour.... Again the Chairman rang his Benares bell, & rang in vain. In an inaudible voice, like a sob, Mālvi declared the sitting suspended.” After all chances of a negotiated solution were closed, Tilak informed the other group that he proposed to move an amendment to the presidential election. A slip requesting permission to move an adjournment in Tilak’s own handwriting was passed to Mālvi. The proceedings of 27th began. Tilak began to move to the platform finding his request dishonoured. Mālvi declared Dr. Ghose elected President amid shouts of No, No. By this time Tilak had planted himself on the platform. What followed is best described by Nevinson: “With folded arms Mr Tilak faced the audience. On either side of him young moderates sprang to their feet, wildly gesticulating vengeance. Shaking their fists & yelling to the air, they clamoured to hurl him down the step of the platform. Behind him, Dr. Ghose mounted the table, & ringing & unheard bell, harangued the storm in shrill, agitated, unintelligible denunciations.... But Tilak stood there with folded arms, defiant, calling on violence to do its worst.... Suddenly something flew through the air – a shoe
– Mahratta shoe
... hands, Sri Aurobindo went to Surat.* * Some of the Bengal Nationalists wanted to avoid Surat, and hold a separate Congress at Nagpur, Moonje and Chidambaram Pillai supported the proposal. But Tilak wired: "For God's sake, no split." Sri Aurobindo acquiesced, and so they went to Surat. C.C. Dutt has recorded that, along with Barin, a few boys also went to Surat carrying fire-arms, and had... finally, Surat; the principal characters are the Moderate leaders, and there are also symbolic abstractions like Democracy. Nagpur and Surat. In the end, the Mehta group are shown as succeeding in their endeavour to "slay the Congress". A clever and amusing skit, it is interesting mainly because it tells us something about the way tempers were frayed at the time. V From Surat Sri Aurobindo... to shift the venue from Nagpur to Surat. Rash Behari Ghose was elected President of the coming session, and this was facilitated by Lajpat Rai's withdrawal from the contest. Failing Tilak, the Nationalists would have liked Lajpat Rai, just released from prison, to be President. But the die was cast anyhow, and all was set for the great confrontation at Surat. Perhaps Pherozeshah Mehta and his ...
... Mother's Chronicles - Book Five 44 Surat On Christmas eve, the Nationalist Party from Bengal reached Surat. There were already many delegates who had come and they kept arriving from all over the country. Among them were Ashwini Kumar Dutt from Bengal, G. S. Khaparde and Dr. Munje from the Central Provinces, Lala Lajpat Rai from Punjab,... at Subodh Mullick's place. I was very serious at that time. The next occasion was when I was president of the National Conference at Surat. Then also I couldn't laugh, being the President. So he called me 'the man who never laughs.'" And Sri Aurobindo laughed. Surat was then a sleepy little old town on the West coast, on the Gulf of Khambat, between Bombay and Baroda. Here the early European traders... between the rich and the poor was an essential part of nationalism. " Sri Aurobindo, who was an 'Extremist,' said, recalling illustrative incidents at Surat, "Thinking it our duty to turn the theory into practice, we had travelled together, on our way to Surat, in the same third class. In the camp the leaders, instead of making separate arrangements, would sleep in the same room along with the others. Rich ...
... necessity for reviving all that was intrinsically good in Hindu dharma. But because of Surat, and even more because of the experience of Nirvanic calm, there was a haunting new intensity in his utterances, a new purity, a new flame-like glow like the rising Sun's touch of gold on casements opening on the East. The Surat events themselves made apparently little difference to him; he had taken them in... among the revolutionary groups. There was some shooting practice too in the Gardens, and at least the trunk of one mango tree showed abundant signs of having been used as a target. After the Surat Congress and Sri Aurobindo's experience of Nirvana under Yogi Lele's guidance, it came as a brain-wave to Barin that Lele might be useful at the Manicktolla Gardens also and he might be able to put... of life he may choose, he would be a grand doer no less than a grand dreamer, and that he is born to hold the helm of world-affairs. 13 In the second, taken at Baroda immediately after the Surat Congress, Sri Aurobindo is seen standing, his left hand clasping a walking-stick as if it were a wand of destiny, a huge garland round his neck merging with the thick-folded Pashmina shawl thrown ...
... agree upon it, and this was not found possible. Especially when Mr. Tilak and Lala Lajpat Rai, fresh from his exile, were in favour of attending the Surat session, there could be no further question of our course. It has been decided, then, to attend the Surat Congress in what force we can muster at this short notice and do our best to hold the ground we have gained, as well as to see that certain questions... Nationalist principles and Nationalist practice all over India, to make ready at whatever inconvenience and, if they find it humanly possible, go to Surat to support the Nationalist cause. We are aware of the tremendous difficulties in our way. Surat is far-distant, the expenses of such a journey are almost prohibitive, for only a small percentage of our party are men of means, and the time for preparation... Bande Mataram under the Editorship of Sri Aurobindo 28.May-22.Dec.1907 Bande Mataram The Surat Congress 13-December-1907 When the All-India Congress Committee first betrayed its charge and degraded itself from the position of a high arbiter and guide in all national affairs to that of a party machine subservient to a single political tactician, we said ...
... commenced its proceedings at Surat on 26th December, 1907. We have from Sri Aurobindo himself a pretty long description of what happened at this Congress: "...The session of the Congress had first been arranged at Nagpur, but Nagpur was a predominantly Mahratta city and violently extremist. Gujerat was at that time predominantly Moderate, there were very few Nationalists and Surat was a stronghold of Moderatism... gives a vivid description of Sri Aurobindo in his characteristic pose and poise at the nationalist Conference at Surat. "...sat unmoved, with far-off eyes, as one who gazes at futurity" - a description which whosoever saw Sri Aurobindo anywhere at close quarters would readily bear out. Surat Congress was broken, the Nationalists and the Moderates had drifted apart, and the dim hopes of a united Congress... story. After his return from Surat via Nagpur, Sri Aurobindo delivered a few speeches in Calcutta and some of its suburbs. On the 8th April, 1908, he addressed a meeting at Chetia near Chandemagore.147 On the 10th he spoke at Panti's Math in Calcutta on the subject of the United Congress. He pleaded for restoring unity to the National Congress which had split at Surat. But the Calcutta Congress ...
... manoeuvred to get the location shifted to Surat which was a Moderate stronghold whereas at Nagpur the Maharashtrian Nationalists were powerfully represented. From the beginning, therefore, it was apparent that this session of the Congress would be a decisive trial of strength and indeed the proceedings at Surat turned out to be both dramatic and fateful. The Surat Congress was scheduled to begin on December... was known to be a Moderate stronghold. The Moderates were not above encouraging rowdyism when it suited their purpose! The Nationalists did not come to Surat to wreck the Congress or divide it. Some Nationalist leaders indeed wanted to avoid Surat and hold a separate Congress at Nagpur. But Tilak sent a wire: 'For God's sake, no split.' Sri Aurobindo acquiesced. The Nationalists were willing to make... in 1929. Meanwhile the Surat Congress sounded the political death-knell of the Moderates. Though some individual Moderate leaders were later to occupy eminent positions in the Government, as a political party the Moderates became a waning force and were soon supplanted by other nationalist forces which came to the fore. The year 1908 was dawning as Sri Aurobindo left Surat for Baroda. This was his ...
... Calcutta Bodyguard of Sri Aurobindo With Sudhir Sarkar as his bodyguard, Sri Aurobindo went to the Surat Congress meeting. After accomplishing their work in Chandernagore Barinda, Upenda and others proceeded to Surat. There Barinda, Upenda, Ullasda and others created the pandemonium at the Surat meeting and then returned to Calcutta. Upon reaching home I heard that Sri Aurobindo, along with Sudhir... Sometimes he was entrusted with plans and programmes of the revolution to show them to sympathisers and potential patrons. In December 1907 Sri Aurobindo went to the Indian National Congress session at Surat. Sudhir accompanied him as his personal attendant and served him as his bodyguard. After the break-up of the Congress he went with Sri Aurobindo in the latter’s lecture tour of Western India. On April... December Sri Aurobindo started for Midnapore. Dada (Ashwini K. Bhattacharjee) sent Sudhir Sarkar with Sri Aurobindo, because from Midnapore Sri Aurobindo would have to make arrangements for going to Surat Congress meeting. — Upendra Chandra Bhattacharjee Printing ‘No Compromise’ and ‘Bhavani Mandir’ After my return from Baroda the second time, I printed with the help of Sudhir Sarkar of Khulna ...
... had time to go to Deoghar before leaving for Surat on the 21 st . According to Purani, Mrinalini Devi was then living in N°29/3 Chhaku Khansama Lane, Calcutta. So in all likelihood Sri Aurobindo at least saw his wife and could bid her good-bye. Every day counted; there were pulls from every side. He was organizing the Bengal delegates for the Surat Congress. Page 400 This included... Mataram gave a call to all Nationalists to attend the Surat Congress in force. "We call upon Nationalists in Calcutta and the Mofussil [countryside], who are at all desirous of the spread of Nationalist principles and Nationalist practice all over India, to make ready at whatever inconvenience and, if they find it humanly possible, go to Surat to support the Nationalist cause. ... If Bengal goes there... Nationalism as neither bureaucrats nor Bombay Loyalists are prepared to believe possible." That was a reference to the followers of Pherozeshah Mehta. "When Sir Pherozshah Mehta juggled the Congress into Surat, he thought he was preparing a death-blow for Nationalism : he was only preparing the way for a Nationalist awakening in Gujerat." Arabindo Babu urged the Nationalists "to fling ourselves at once on ...
... Part Three; articles written during the first seven months after the start of the weekly are published in Part Four. At the end of December 1907, Sri Aurobindo left Calcutta to attend the Surat session of the Indian National Congress. Before and after the session, he delivered a number of speeches in different cities. Many of these survive in one form or another. Transcripts of nine of... Deoghar; after 8 April in Calcutta except as noted below In Midnapore, for the district conference Leaves Calcutta to attend the Surat Congress 1908 5 February 10 - 15(?) Feb. 17 - 20 April 2 May ... Way By the Way Mr. Gokhale's Disloyalty The President of the Berhampur Conference Pherozshahi at Surat The Old Year A Vilifier on Vilification By the Way The Leverage ...
... way to Surat I spoke a few words to you. The Congress had not taken place then. I merely pointed out the course our line of action should take at the Surat Congress. The motives and hopes with which we went to Surat were unfortunately not realised. But we are helpless in the matter. Several partisan papers have already begun to pass remarks such as "The Nationalist party assembled at Surat solely with... Nationalism. From this standpoint, which of our headquarters had been left behind? If we regard the leaders as the headquarters, one of them is at Buxar at present Page 847 and the other was at Surat! No such telegram was received by the Nationalist party. The above statement is entirely false. The Nationalist party did not want to wreck the Congress and it never did. I do not blame anyone. But... fight. But none should try to drive away any party from the institution by taking advantage of a local majority formed according to his own wishes. It is clear that the other party had the majority at Surat. Was it not the attempt of the Moderate party to drive the Nationalist party out of the Congress from next year by taking advantage of this local majority? Why should the opinion of one party that such ...
... were forwarded to the ensuing Congress session at Surat. Sri Aurobindo won over many Moderate leaders to the Nationalist side. Sri Aurobindo met Satyendra Bose and Khudiram Bose. On 15 December 1907 a public meeting was held in Beadon Square. Sri Aurobindo spoke. A resolution supporting the Nationalist programme was passed and was forwarded to the Surat Congress. On 22 December Sri Aurobindo halted... halted at Nagpur for two days on his way to the Surat Congress. Sir Moropant Joshi was present at the meeting addressed by Sri Aurobindo. He was Page 94 one of those who had taken the oath of the revolutionary society "Lotus & Dagger" while in England. Joshi was now a leader of the Moderates in C. P. "On my way to the Surat Congress we stopped at Nagpur," said Sri Aurobindo later... bench was sitting Moropant Joshi. Deshmukh was by his side. Joshi was all along gaping at me." 1 Surat Congress, December 1907 A week before the sessions both parties – the Moderates and the Nationalists – began their efforts to secure the majority for their side. The Moderates chose Surat as the venue as they thought it would be easy for them to secure a majority there. Tilak, Khaparde, Khare ...
... Sri Aurobindo 24.Oct.1906 - 27.May.1907 Bande Mataram Pherozshahi at Surat 10-April-1907 The methods of Moderate autocrats are as instructive as they are peculiar. The account of the characteristic proceedings of Sir Pherozshah Mehta at the Surat Conference, which we published in yesterday's correspondence columns, bears a strong family likeness to the... replace foreign autocrats by the Swadeshi article, but to replace an irresponsible bureaucracy by popular self-government. Page 253 The most extraordinary of Sir Pherozshah's freaks at Surat was not his treatment of Sir Bhalchandra as if the President of the Conference were his tame cat,—for what else was the Knight of the Umbrella, pushed into a position to which he has no claims of any... insulted. Such mouthings show either a guilty conscience which cannot face public scrutiny or an entire moral unfitness for leadership in any constitutional proceedings. We regret that the delegates at Surat did not insist on their rights. Sir Pherozshah Mehta came to Calcutta, prepared to do at Page 255 the Congress precisely what he has now been doing at the Conference; but he found a spirit ...
... have addressed enquiries to us about the manner in which it is to be disposed of. The object of the fund is to send to Surat a number of delegates with uncompromising views and of an uncompromising spirit who will see to it, so far as lies in their power, that the Congress at Surat shall make no backward step but, if possible, move a step further towards associating itself with the new life of the country... formulated after due discussion in the Nationalist Conference which meets on the 24th at Surat, but these are the broad lines on which we propose to frame them. We may mention finally that all we propose to give out of the fund is assistance; no single delegate will be given all his expenses to and from or at Surat. If it should be decided to propose constitutional changes in the direction Page 802 ...
... magnetic power of his own, and at one time he had even begun veering towards the revolutionaries. "Our final and most dramatic confrontation with the Page 134 Moderates took place at the Surat Congress, as a result of which they lost their hold, and the Party was taken over by the Radicals." "That meeting turned into a regular battle, didn't it?" "Who told you that?" "Our teachers... Sri Aurobindo laughed and said, "Gave the battle-orders? Fighting and rowdyism! A meek and quiet man like me! Can you believe that? Listen, this is how it happened. The two opposing groups met at Surat. Our opponents were more in number, had name and fame and age on their side. Our group was made up entirely of unknown men, except for Tilak, Bepin Pal and me. The Moderates had decided on no account... point. It was then that I realised that I needed the help of a Yogi who would show me the way out of this difficulty. I asked Barin to help me find one. It was the time when we were preparing for the Surat Congress, getting ready for a decisive battle with the Moderates. Barin had by then heard of Lele and sent him a telegram requesting him to come to Baroda. It seems that Lele, on receiving the telegram ...
... Khaserao Saheb's bungalow had purple glass panes." S. B. Didmishe's remembrance of Sri Aurobindo's passage in Baroda a year later, after the Surat Congress, had remained vivid. "Then," Didmishe recalled, "after the break-up of the Congress at Surat, he came to Baroda for five or six days to speak on behalf of the Extremist party. There four lectures were delivered in the Bankaneer Theatre. 1 ... January; it was a Pashmina shawl offered by Sardar Mazumdar who saw Sri Aurobindo going about in a shirt. The Baroda Collegians so idolized their former Professor that when he came to Baroda from Surat they unharnessed the horses from his carriage and pulled it themselves. * * * Charu Chandra Dutt had heard much about Sri Aurobindo from different sources. But it was finally in 1904... (in those days we saw Sri Aurobindo only three times a year), became one of the attendant doctors. Once in the course of the daily talk, he remarked to Sri Aurobindo, "I heard your lecture after the Surat Congress. You had some paper in your hand." Page 223 "That was the speech I made from an entire silence of the mind," replied Sri Aurobindo, "and that was my first experience of the ...
... local product but made in Bombay, and all these attempts at conciliation were simply meant to prepare the public mind for the transfer to Surat which had already been decided on by the mastermind in Bombay. Meanwhile the wires were pulled at Surat and Madras and the Surat respectables and Mr. Krishnaswamy Aiyar and his Mahajan Sabha danced to the skilful manipulation. We do not believe the Madras offer... offer was anything but a feint, for Madras is much too near to Bengal and there is already a strong Nationalist party in the northern parts of that province; but to have only the single offer from Surat would have been to leave the whole intrigue too bare to the public eye. Our belief is confirmed by the Bombay correspondent of the Bengalee who openly says that Madras was not chosen because there were... willing and able to reconstitute the Committee and hold the session as arranged at Calcutta, the Moderate majority records a predetermined decision to transfer Sir Pherozshah's movable property to Surat at a safe distance from Bengal where the Loyalist position is as yet unbreached and there is no time for the Nationalists to instruct public opinion before the holding of the session. The intrigue ...
... he had become a national celebrity. Such was the situation in 1907 when the Bengal leaders of the Congress travelled in a chartered train to Surat, a town on the west coast of the Indian subcontinent. The whole thousand-mile route from Kharagpur to Surat was a triumphal journey of lights, crowds, and continued cheering,’ wrote Barin, who had accompanied his brother. ‘Aurobindo, the new idol of the... was Aurobindo’s aim ‘to imprint in the spirit of the people the will for freedom’. Because of his decisive interventions in Surat, this would henceforth be an integral part of the political programme, ultimately leading to India’s independence. At the time of the Surat Congress, December 1907 Front row left to right: G.S. Khaparde, Aswini Kumar Dutta Middle row: Sirdar Ajit Singh, Sri... frantic crowd rushed about on the station platforms looking for him in the first and second class carriages, while all the time Aurobindo sat unobserved in a third class compartment.’ 9 It was in Surat that the Congress split into a conservative and an extremist wing. Historians had all along supposed that Tilak was responsible for the break-up, although he denied it himself time and again. A letter ...
... type—there were two or three others—was always brief. Because I had something else to do this time, I suppose. 28 September 1936 Page 25 The Surat Congress (1907) I happened to read an article in which the author mentions the Surat Congress, but strangely enough he does not even mention your name whereas Tilak, Lal, Pal take the prominent place. It is impossible he could not have known... consulting Tilak) who gave the order that led to the breaking of the Congress and was responsible for the refusal to join the new-fangled Moderate Convention which were the two decisive happenings at Surat. Even my action in giving the movement in Bengal its militant turn or founding the revolutionary movement is very little known. 22 March 1936 Leaving Politics I may also say that I did not ...
... seems to be a reply to another draft forwarded in the name of some Calcutta Committee. This is described in the forwarding letter as a committee of "our leaders". If it is the Calcutta Committee of the Surat Convention, it should have made its origin and nature clear while forwarding its views to the Mofussil. We are entirely unaware of any general Committee having been formed of the leaders in Calcutta... their draft appear to be under the impression that the leaders of the Nationalist party are in the know. We must remind them that there are two Committees, one appointed by the Moderate Convention at Surat, the other by a meeting of the delegates pledged to the four Calcutta resolutions. No attempt to arrogate to the Convention Committee the sole inheritance of the Congress can succeed; and if the people... people of Bengal desire union on the lines of the Pabna resolution they must insist either on the All-India Congress Committee being entrusted with the work of reviving the Congress or on both the Surat Committees uniting to arrange the lines on which the Congress shall be reconstructed. A section has no right to lay down a law by which the whole will be bound and if they persist in the attempt they ...
... district conference in Midnapore a year later had led to serious clashes between Moderates and Extremists. A decisive confrontation was unavoidable. It would take place at the next general conference in Surat. On 24 December 1907 Aurobindo chaired in this small town on India’s west coast a conference of the Nationalists, as the Extremists were also known. The general I.N.C. conference started on 26 December... of the College unyoked the horses of his carriage, in which were also seated Sakharia Swami and Barin, and pulled it in triumphant procession to the house where he was to stay. Barin had not gone to Surat to participate in the I.N.C. conference, for the politicking of which he, as a terrorist, felt little more than disdain. He had gone to look for contacts with eventual Maratha terrorists, but he had... Voice well known to me, in three words: “Go to Chandernagore.” In ten minutes or so I was in the boat to Chandernagore … I may add in explanation that from the time I left Lele at Bombay after the Surat Sessions and my stay with him in Baroda, I had accepted the rule of following the inner guidance implicitly and moving only as I was moved by the Divine. The spiritual development during the year in ...
... Ahmedabad-380 003.Tel. No.786-6393 , (0). 6. Dr. Savita Guar (SG) Deptt. of Comparative Literature, South Gujarat University, UdhnaMagdalla Road, Surat-395 007. Resi: 803, Prem Aptt.Ravishankar Sankul, Bhatar Char Rasta, Surat-395 007. Tel.No.254709. 7. Mrs. Sumitra Merchant (SM) Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry-605 002. Page 145 8... Sub- hanpura Road, Baroda-390 007. Tel. No. 381675 (R). Page 144 3. Mr. Ishwarbhai Bhatt (IB) Founder of Navasarjan Schools at Nargol, 71-B, Dhavalgiri Aptts., Surat-395 007.Tel. No. 669141. 4. Mr. Manish Soni (MS) Vedic Scholar, 10-B, Ankur Park Society, Subhanpura, Baroda-390 007. Tel. No.383186 OR 381759 (R) 5. Mr. R. Uma Anavartam ...
... point beyond which I couldn't proceed further. I gave it up and fell dangerously ill! I was on the point of death. I asked Barin if he knew anyone who could help me in Yoga. This was in Surat where I had attended the Surat Congress. Barin knew of Lele who was in Gwalior. He wired to him and asked him to meet us at Baroda. Pranayama had given me good health, a lot of poetry and various experiences. Now... AUROBINDO: Which Industrial Exhibition? DR. MANILAL: At Ahmedabad. SRI AUROBINDO: That was the speech I prepared for him. (Roar of laughter) MULSHANKAR: I heard your lecture at Bombay after the Surat Congress. You had some paper in your hand. SRI AUROBINDO: That was the speech I made from an entire silence of the mind. It was my first experience of the kind. You didn't hear me at Baroda? DR ...
... consulting Tilak) who gave the order that led to the breaking of the Congress and was responsible for the refusal to join the new-fangled Moderate Convention which were the two decisive happenings at Surat." He then added, "Even my action in giving the movement in Bengal its militant turn or founding the revolutionary movement is very little known." The morning of Friday, 27 December, dawned. Few... the Chairman by one of the boy Volunteers to say he wished to speak on the election of the President after the seconder had spoken." The Chairman of the Reception Committee was Tribhuvandas Malvi of Surat. It is likely that Nevinson did not know. The Nationalists had really striven hard to avoid a showdown. Tilak and Khaparde had failed in their attempt to meet Malvi the previous day. Nor did they... and "a new spirit, a different and difficult spirit had indeed arisen in the country." It had been "roses, roses all the way" on the Wednesday before when the Moderate leaders had travelled to Surat. On Sunday, as the party returned by train, "each station rang with shouts of 'Down with Rash Behari ! 'Down with Gokhale!' 'Down with Surendra Nath!'..." The Bande Mataram had kept its promise ...
... national force. Even if Sir Pherozshah Mehta overwhelms us with numbers at Surat, even if we cannot carry a single proposition in the Congress Pandal, yet if we can give this great impulse to Gujerat and organize our scattered forces for a great march forward, all the energy, all the expenditure we can devote to this session at Surat will be amply rewarded. It is not merely or chiefly by victories in the... pace and bring back the nation's energies into the old grooves, have only helped to increase the vehemence of the National desire to move forward. When Sir Pherozshah Mehta juggled the Congress into Surat, he thought he was preparing a death-blow for Nationalism: he was only preparing the way for a Nationalist awakening in Gujerat. Nationalism depends for its success on the awakening and organizing of... Gujerat, unlike some of the other politically backward provinces, was profoundly affected. The ground has been prepared and Nationalist sentiment has already spread among the educated Gujeratis. The Surat Congress provides an opportunity to give a fresh and victorious impulse which will make Gujerat Nationalism a powerful working and organized force. The importance of winning Gujerat to the Nationalist ...
... The Surat Congress This version does not represent accurately the facts as Sri Aurobindo remembers them. So far as he knows there was no attempt at fire. The session of the Congress had first been arranged at Nagpur, but Nagpur was predominantly a Mahratta city and violently extremist. Gujerat was at that time predominantly moderate, there were very few Nationalists and Surat was a stronghold... stronghold of Moderatism though afterwards Gujerat became, especially after Gandhi took the lead, one of the most revolutionary of the provinces. So the Moderate leaders decided to hold the Congress at Surat. The Nationalists however came there in strength from all parts, they held a public conference with Sri Aurobindo as president and for some time it was doubtful which side would have the majority, but... pledged to the nationalist cause. The Moderate party shrank into a small body of liberals and even these finally subscribed to the ideal of complete independence. Page 83 After the Surat debacle, Sri Aurobindo did not return to Bengal immediately, as he had originally intended; impelled by an inner urge, he undertook a political tour instead in the Bombay presidency and the Central ...
... meeting in Beadon Square, Calcutta. December 21 Leaves Calcutta for Surat, the venue of the 1907 session of the Indian National Congress. December 22 Addresses a meeting at Nagpur. December 24 - 25 At Surat, presides over the conferences of Nationalist delegates. December 26 First day of the Congress session at Surat. December 27 Second day of the session: Sri Aurobindo gives... gives the order that leads to the breaking of the Congress. December 28 Presides over a meeting of the Nationalists. December 31 Leaves Surat for Baroda. 1908 January In Baroda. Meets Vishnu Bhaskar Leie, a Maharashtrian yogi. Following Leie's instructions, establishes complete silence of the mind attaining to the experience of the Silent Brahman ...
... Beadon Square, Calcutta. December 21 Leaves Calcutta for Surat, the venue of the 1907 session of the Indian National Congress. December 22 Addresses a meeting at Nagpur. December 24-25 At Surat, presides over the conferences of Nationalist delegates. December 26 First day of the Congress session at Surat. December 27 Second day of the session: Sri Aurobindo... Aurobindo gives the order that leads to the breaking of the Congress. December 28 Presides over a meeting of the Nationalists. December 31 Leaves Surat for Baroda. Page 814 1908 — January In Baroda. Meets Vishnu Bhaskar Lele, a Maharashtrian yogi. Following Lele's instructions, establishes complete silence of the mind, attaining to the experience of the ...
... to resume his yoga but did not know how to begin again. That is why he was searching for some guidance —a guru. "I asked Barin if he knew anyone who could help me in Yoga. This was in Surat where I had attended the Surat Congress. Barin knew of Lele who was in Gwalior. He wired to him and asked him to meet us at Baroda____ Now Lele took me to a quiet room upstairs in Khaserao Jadhav's house... Mother's Chronicles - Book Five 47 Lele "As one who gazes at futurity." Henry Nevinson had perception. On 31 December Sri Aurobindo left Surat for Baroda. Barin and Sakharia Baba were with him in the reserved compartment of the train. In that biting cold of Gujarat, Sri Aurobindo was going about with one shirt, and cheap canvas shoes. ... comes usually at the end." Upon his return to Calcutta, Barin spoke to Sejda about this extraordinary man. Sejda expressed a wish to meet this yogi. Soon the opportunity came. Right after the Surat Congress was over Barin sent a wire to Lele. It was in answer to that wire from Barin that Lele had come to Baroda and met Sri Aurobindo at the Jadhavs' house there. From 1923 onwards Sri Aurobindo ...
... proof of our capacity in almost all these respects and the evolution of a strong united and well-organised Bengal had become a near and certain prospect. The internal troubles which came to a head at Surat and the repressive policy initiated immediately afterwards, culminating in the destruction of our organisations and the effective intimidation of Swadeshi workers Page 153 and sympathisers... and, finally, the deliberate obstinacy of a few Moderate leaders in avoiding discussion of the points of difference and the unruly ardour of the younger men on both sides led to the violent scenes at Surat and the break-up of the Congress. If the question is ever to be settled to the advantage of national progress, the personal and minor differences must be banished from the field and the real issues... a Congress on sound constitutional lines in which the bitter experience of the past may be relied on to prevent those mistakes of obstinacy and passion which prevented a solution of the problem at Surat. Outside the Congress the chances of united working are more complete than within it. There are only two questions which are likely either to trouble harmony or hamper action. The first is the question ...
... contract all the faults of the Congress. Neither can we get any help from the proceedings of the Nationalist Conference which met at Surat; for that was a loose and informal body which only considered certain immediate questions and emergencies arising out of the Surat session. Yet a centre of deliberation and the consideration of past progress and future policy is essential to the building of the ... but to the future. There are still in the party the relics of the old desire to raise up a rival Congress and assert our claim to be part legatees of the institution which came to a violent end at Surat. Our claim stands and, if a real Congress is again erected, it must be with the Nationalists within it and not excluded. The strength of the demand in the country for a United Congress is a sufficient ...
... fracas at Surat. It will not therefore be enough to provide against the party character of the address, it is still more necessary to provide against the party use of the President's authority. In the House of Commons the Speaker is a non-party man whose sole business is to interpret impartially the rules of the House, and, if we are to avoid the repetition of such scenes as took place at Surat, the President... devised as would both deter the President from misusing his authority and foster the growth of a public sentiment such as governs the proceedings of free assemblies in free countries. Mr. Tilak at the Surat Congress appealed to the Congress against the decision of the Chairman of the Reception Committee disallowing his notice for the adjournment of the election of the President. This right which is inherent ...
... Sri Aurobindo presiding over the Nationalists' conference at Surat. On his right is G. S. Khaparde; on his left, standing, is B. G. Tilak. (On December 27, 1907, the Nationalist party, with Sri Aurobindo presiding over its conference, broke away from the Congress Moderates at the tumultuous Surat session over the tatter's refusal to reaffirm the demands of Swaraj... presidentship of Dadabhai Naoroji. It was going to take the Congress another twenty-two years to declare complete independence for its goal.) January 19, 1908 (A few days after the Surat events, Sri Aurobindo had in Baroda a first decisive experience, that of Nirvana or the Brahman consciousness. Henceforth all his activities, including his speeches and writings, flowed from an "absolute ...
... Page 14 On trying to find an answer I found that I had known him before the appearance of the Arya . The Congress broke up at Surat in 1907. Sri Aurobindo had played a prominent part in that historical session. From Surat he came to Baroda, and at Vankaner Theatre and at Prof, Manik Rao's old gymnasium in Dandia Bazar he delivered several speeches which not only took the... weaving and gold-lace work and other fine handicrafts are being starved because of insistence on Khadi, while foreign-made imitation Khadi is coming to India unchecked ! The artisans of. Pattan, Surat, Paithan etc. are without a market for their fine products! Sri Aurobindo : The way they are proceeding they might completely destroy even a little of the fine artistic value that is left in ...
... to bring it into the actual field of practical politics." It was the Swadeshi movement that brought forward Tilak prominently as an all-India leader. "From the inception of the Boycott to the Surat catastrophe and his last and longest imprisonment, which was its sequel, the name and work of Mr. Tilak are a part of Indian history." We have made before a glancing reference to the three prosecutions... fine of Rs. 1000. In 1916 he was prosecuted once again for sedition, but was acquitted. Tilak had accepted the leadership of the Nationalists. After the debacle of the Congress on 27 December at Surat, the Moderates opened their Convention on the 28 th , while two hundred policemen guarded the wreck of the pandal. Nevinson records. "In the afternoon the Extremists also held a convention, and... Lokamanya Tilak, G. P. Pradhan and A. K. Bhagwat, wrote: "Tilak and Aurobindo were master Page 427 Sri Aurobindo presiding over the Nationalists' Conference at Surat. On his right is Khaparde; on his left, standing, is Tilak. minds and when they came together each had his impact on the other ... Tilak knew that Aurobindo symbolised a new force ...
... the [district] 5 Conference at Midnapore where there was a vehement clash between the two parties. He now for the first time became a speaker on the public platform, addressed large meetings at Surat and presided over the Nationalist conference there. He stopped at several places on his way back to Calcutta and was the speaker at large meetings called to hear him. 6 He led the party again at... Bengal with the Extremist party as his strong right arm: but that would have necessitated the Nationalists being appointed as delegates by the Bengal Moderates and accepting the constitution imposed at Surat. This Sri Aurobindo refused to do; he demanded a change in that constitution enabling newly formed associations to elect delegates so that the Nationalists might independently send their representatives ...
... 10, 20 and Pakistan, 224 and th e Partition, 244 sessions of, -Arnrttsar (1919), 149 -Calcutta ( 1906), 35 . Lahore ( 1929), 149(fn) -Luc know (1916),195 -Nagpur ( 19 20), I 49(fn), 155 -Surat (1907), 35 and World War 11,227,231 Indo-Afghan race , 96, 107 Indo-Saracenic architecture, 168 Indra , 116,117 Indu Prakash (Bombay daily), 9 Indus-Saraswati civilization, 1oo(fn) industry,... his revolutionary action, 13,246 editor of Bande Mataram, 17 principal of Bengal National College,27 behind the Nationalist movement, 195 -196,246 Bande Mataram sedition case, 27. 195-196 Surat Congress, 35 Alipore Bomb Case, 47 withdrawal from politics, 71 , 110-111 , 151 departure for Chandernagore, 71 departure for Pondicherry, 71, 83 meeting with Mother, 113 calls for his return ...
... in the future; but this the bureaucracy are not prepared to concede. Yet the Loyalists are precisely those whose support is least worth having. Really strong in commercial centres like Bombay and Surat, wearing an appearance only of strength, in other parts where Nationalism has not yet put forth a strength, it is a waning force constitutionally prone to inertia and incapable of exciting enthusiasm... made upon them. The Page 759 bureaucracy may well hope that the back of the movement is broken and relax their legal thumbscrew, at least until they have seen what Sir Pherozshah can do at Surat. Any fresh development of Nationalism they are prepared to meet by ruthless repression. Wherever they see it spreading itself by open propaganda, they will forthwith apply the Gagging Act; wherever ...
... is obvious that he has not really grasped its significance. At the National Congress held in Calcutta, a resolution on National Education was passed unanimously. Unfortunately, since the Congress at Surat did not take place, it could not be introduced there. Mr. Gokhale made certain modifications to the resolution Page 810 on National Education passed in Calcutta. In his opinion, these m... and appreciate just what we mean by National Education. This may also make it clear why we intended to put a specific resolution about National Education before the National Congress Committee at Surat. What has been done in Bengal I have put before you. If you wish to see for yourselves, you are welcome. Those who have doubts in their minds, those who think that National Education is an impossibility ...
... issue, and not over any serious difference of opinion. And though the issue at Surat was much larger and complicated, it is significant that the battle was joined over a question of constitutional procedure, and it was on a claim of the official oligarchy to override the constitutional rights of a delegate that the Surat Congress broke up in admired disorder. Oligarchy or democracy, authority or freedom ...
... aspirations of a people. To sign it would be against their reason, against their conscience and against their rights. The Mahrattas take a different standpoint. Mr. Tilak at the Nationalist Conference in Surat declared that absolute autonomy must be the ultimate goal of our efforts, but a partial autonomy may be a halfway house, the former being then the ideal of the party, the latter a practical and immediate... self-government as an ultimate goal was objectionable, but the statement of self-government in the Empire Page 1084 as an immediate goal was permissible. When the Convention was first held at Surat, many of the Nationalist delegates from Maharashtra saw no objection to signing the creed as it stood, and some of them went to the Pandal and offered to sign but were turned away. It was because the ...
... publicly the imprimatur of the leading Moderate of western India and that which was suspected by some, prophesied by others at the time of the Surat Congress, the alliance of Bombay Moderatism with officialdom against the new Nationalism, an alliance prepared by the Surat sitting, cemented by subsequent events, confirmed by the Madras Convention, is now unmasked and publicly ratified. The most odious part ...
... national eminence. He was now recognised as one of the four outstanding leaders of the "extremist" or Nationalist party, the other three being Tilak, Lajpat Rai and Bepin Chandra Pal. The split at the Surat Congress (December 1907) was followed by Sri Aurobindo's first Yogic realisation at Baroda, and his "Midlothian" campaign from Bombay to Calcutta. His articles in the Bande Mataram and his public... made him an all-India Page 201 figure. During the third year (1907-8) - it was really eight months - he took an active part organising nationalist opinion and forcing the split at Surat, while his first Yogic realisation of Nirvana at Baroda gave a new turn to the quality and intensity of the whole tenor of his future life. During the fourth period (1908-9), Sri Aurobindo was in jail ...
... servile tactics of the Moderates and won victory for the Nationalist cause. December: Attended the Surat sessions of the Congress and practically eliminated Moderatism from Indian politics by breaking the the Congress itself. Met at Surat the famous Maharashtrian Yogi Shakhere Baba who was interested in Indian independence. Later, towards ...
... Bengal Provincial Conference at Midnapore where there was a vehement clash between the two parties. He now for the first time became a speaker on the public platform, addressed large meetings at Surat and presided over the Nationalist conference there. He stopped at several places on his way back to Calcutta and was the speaker at large meetings called to hear him. He led the party again at... the Extremist Party as his strong right arm : but that would have necessitated the Nationalists being appointed as delegates by the Bengal Moderates and accepting the constitution imposed at Surat. This Sri Aurobindo refused to do; he demanded a change in that constitution enabling newly formed associations to elect delegates so that the Nationalists might independently send their repre ...
... Life of Sri Aurobindo CHAPTER V Beginning of Yoga When Sri Aurobindo was at Surat he met Sakhare Baba, a Maharashtrian yogi, who was intensely interested in the question of Indian independence. Sri Aurobindo found his own sadhana becoming very irregular and disorganised on account of the political work. So he told Barin to arrange a meeting with someone... 17 February 1907. This is evidently a slip. In February 1907 Sri Aurobindo was staying in Deoghar. The house in Scott's Lane does not seem to have been taken till after Sri Aurobindo's return from Surat in February 1908. In 1909 the judge in the Alipore bomb case, evaluating the letter as evidence, said of it, "dated 17th February 1907 – obviously a mistake for 1908". (Bijoy Krishna Bose, Ed. T ...
... mukti. He invoked Shiva's tandav death-dance so that Sati might achieve resurrection. Was he not the author of that notorious political dynamite, Bhawani Mandir? Did he not cause the split at Surat? And Sri Aurobindo didn't even hesitate to preach insurrection. The language of warfare and revolution came as second nature to him. There was the stamp of authority in even his casual utterances... water scarcity, thirst and hunger, sun, rain and cold! But Sri Aurobindo himself didn't mind it at all; rather he learned to welcome this abnormal communal life, as he had loved at the time of the Surat Congress to travel by train in the third class and to camp with the delegates, eating and sleeping together in a "wonderful feeling of brotherhood". The lesson in communal life went a further stage ...
... homage to Sri Aurobindo in the Bande Mataram 386, 446 Maps of Bengal and India (by Maryse Prat) 408 A few Nationalist leaders at Surat (from Abhay Singh's collection) 428 Sri Aurobindo presiding over the Nationalists' confer ence at Surat (from Abhay Singh's collection) 432 Sri Aurobindo at Manik Rae's gymnasium at Baroda (from Abhay Singh's collection) 443 Girgaum ...
... it sound fantastic? It was so dirt cheap to live in those days! Like other West European nations—such as the Dutch, the Danes, the British—the French too began by setting up a trading centre at Surat (1666), on India's west coast. They got permit for trading during Aurangzeb's reign, who ruled a part of India from 1658 to 1707; exactly as the East India Company had got theirs when his grandfather... forth. 1 Pondicherry was no ' The Dutch had bought Pondicherry from the local king Ram-Raja, for 'perpetuity' for the sum of 25,000 Pagodas. Page 149 longer dependent on Surat. Francois Martin gave assurance on behalf of France that it would respect the ways and customs of the people, and would not in any way interfere with their religious practices. That attracted the ...
... a Government that answered conciliation with titles or ... contempt. So they quickly set out to repudiate the resolutions adopted by the Calcutta Congress. Pherozeshah Mehta, for instance, at the Surat Provincial Conference held in April 1907, 1. The Nationalist's definition of Swaraj: " It at once embodies the ideals of independence, unity, liberty." (Bande Mataram, 19-20.8.1907) ... Girish Babu; your grandfather can come and stay with you while I am at the Congress. "I am going to Midna pur today. On my return I shall make the necessary arrangements here, and then proceed to Surat. That will probably be on the 15 th or 16 th . I shall be back on the 2 nd of January. Yours ..." Page 399 ...
... life-work rapidly to a head, and not only in Maharashtra but throughout the country. The incidents of that period are too fresh in memory to need recalling. From the inception of the Boycott to the Surat catastrophe and his last and longest imprisonment, which was its sequel, the name and work of Mr. Tilak are a part of Indian history. These three imprisonments, each showing more clearly the moral stuff... struggle of parties. He always set a high value on the Congress for this reason; he saw in it a centralising body, an instrument and a first, though yet shapeless essay at a popular assembly. Many after Surat spoke of him as the deliberate breaker of the Congress, but to no one was the catastrophe so great a blow as to Mr. Tilak. He did not love the do-nothingness of that assembly, but he valued it both ...
... Aurobindo 28.May-22.Dec.1907 Bande Mataram "Capturing the Congress" 18-December-1907 We have asked the Nationalists all over India to muster strong at Surat during the Congress session. It is believed in some quarters that we intend to march upon the Congress and re-enact a Pride's Purge. Another insinuation is that we form a band of vain, petulant upstarts... , whether they should not work in their own way without coming into collusion with those whose ideals and methods of work render any concerted action hardly possible. We invite the Nationalists to Surat not so much to capture the Congress by violence, as our enemies maliciously put it, but to see that the Nationalist sentiment and Nationalist programme find their place in the deliberations and finally ...
... carried away by their eager perceptions and at such moments it is the sound common sense of a capable democracy that sets right the balance. It was this common sense that saved the situation after Surat. The people had the instinct to desire unity and the good sense to see that unity was not possible or, if possible, was not worth having by the sacrifice of the movement which Bengal had initiated.... constitution proposed or drafted for the better organisation of Congress procedure and Congress affairs. The third section of opinion is that of the Nationalist party. Immediately after the fracas at Surat, on the same day indeed, the party became acutely sensible of the nature of the catastrophe which had occurred and its first step was to take an attitude which might leave the way open to reconciliation; ...
... Indian people. As for really serious disturbance the worst things of that kind which have happened in India occurred at Surat when Sj. Surendranath Banerji was refused a hearing and on the next day when Mr. Tilak was threatened on the platform by the sticks and chairs of Surat loyalists and the Mahratta delegates charged and after a free fight cleared the platform. The refusal to hear a speaker by ...
... receive ideas which they have chosen to oppose, to envisage hopes which they are anxious to discourage, to attempt enterprises with which they are either unwilling or afraid to associate themselves. The Surat Congress failed because they desired to throw an insuperable barrier across the path of the onward march of the rising generation, because they hoped to confine the future to the formulas of the present... held responsible for the result. If the Congress breaks asunder for good, the blame will rest on them and they will no longer be able to throw it upon the Nationalists who have since the break-up at Surat laid themselves open to the charge of weakness and cowardice rather than stand in the way of reconciliation. From the first meeting of the Nationalist Conference after the fracas on the second day of ...
... The times are thickening already with the shadow of a great darkness. The destruction of the Congress, begun at Surat and accomplished at Allahabad, is the prelude for the outburst of the storm that has long been brewing. Great issues were involved in that historic struggle at Surat of which none of the Page 1071 actors were aware. Only posterity looking back with awe on the sequel, will ...
... recognized leader of the Extremists, the Congress faction dissatisfied with the docile political programme of the Moderates. He was in fact the most extreme Extremist, and brought matters to a head at the Surat congress in December 1907, where his insistence on full independence of his country from the colonial occupation led to a split between the two trends in the Congress. Political moderation gradually... decisive inner change which came about because of his search for a firm psychological foothold amid the fleeting stream of outer events. He met the yogi Vishnu Baskar Lele in Baroda shortly after the Surat congress. The event would prove determinative for Aurobindo’s further life as, totally unexpected, he had the stunning experience of “the silent Brahman” which he has described on several occasions ...
... somewhat surprisingly, a visit to Pune, Tilak's hometown, never materialised. The Moderates' attempt to sideline the Extremist was increasingly getting desperate. And the stage was set in Surat, the venue of the Congress in December 1907, for a showdown. VOC wired to Tilak and Aurobindo proposing Lala Lajpat Rai for the presidentship of the Congress. In the event, Rash Behari Ghosh, the Calcutta... nominated Secretary of Tilak's new party. There was little doubt that VOC was the spearhead of the nationalist movement in the South. Page 130 The months following VOC's return from Surat were full of intense nationalist activity. The Swadeshi shipping enterprise grew from strength to strength. VOC led a major strike in the European-owned cotton Coral Mills of Tuticorin. Swadeshi meetings ...
... Indian Freedom Movement was the meeting of the Congress at Surat; this meeting represented the clash between the two camps known as the Moderates and the Nationalists. The Moderates were led by Dadabhai Naoroji and the nationalists were led by Tilak and Sri Aurobindo. The meeting ended in disarray. After his participation in the Surat Congress, Bharati was fascinated by the personalities ...
... of His purpose. Man is only an instrument of the Divine. In September 1909 Sri Aurobindo piloted the Bengal Provincial Conference at Hooghly. The 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... in Indian politics. This could only happen if the Moderates voted for the Nationalists and sent them as delegates! But the Nationalists would have been obliged to accept the constitution passed at Surat. Sri Aurobindo refused to accept those terms as it would amount to compromise on essentials. He did not want to maintain unity that way. He proposed a change in the constitution of the Congress and ...
... (co-disciple) Narayan Swami and about the Duttatraya Yoga. Sri Aurobindo described his own experience at Baroda with Lele. 14 April. Suggestions about sadhana; a letter from Natwarlal Bharatia of Surat; conversation about suggestion, intuition and inspiration: the difference of the three functions. A letter to Barin. 17 April. W. W. Pearson came from Shantiniketan. Talk about Shantiniketan. ... Higher Power herself. 2 August. A letter from Motilal Nehru asking Sri Aurobindo to contribute an article to his paper published from Allahabad. 3 August. A telegram from Natwarlal Bharatia of Surat. A letter sent in reply. 15 August. Celebration of Sri Aurobindo's birthday. The verandah where he sat was decorated with jasmine garlands and with lotuses which had been brought from a long distance ...
... order the Arya ?” remained. On trying to find an answer I found that I had known him before the appearance of the Arya . The Congress broke up at Surat in 1907. Sri Aurobindo had played a prominent part in that historical session. From Surat he came to Baroda, and at Vankaner Theatre and at Prof, Manik Rao's old gymnasium in Dandia Bazar he delivered several speeches which not only took the audience ...
... Sri Aurobindo. A few days later, the Karmayogin made an assessment of the results of the Hooghly Conference. For one thing, the situation at Hooghly wasn't strictly comparable to the one at Surat, where the order for the breaking-up of the Congress had to be given. Again, at Hooghly the Nationalists were in a position of commanding strength, and therefore they could the more easily afford... for there were too many intractable problems to solve. To qualify for delegation to Benares, the Nationalists would have first to accept the undemocratic Constitution imposed on the Congress at Surat, and this Sri Aurobindo was not prepared to do. A "united Congress", then, seemed to be not possible of realisation; not, certainly, at that stage. The path taken at Hooghly had, after all, led to ...
... saw a mad dog coming. He held out his hand for the dog to bite. After the bite, he didn't allow the poison to go into the system but localised it." Even in sleep he exercised that control. "When the Surat Congress was over, he got excited and thus lost control and the poison spread in his body. He got hydrophobia and couldn't drink water. He said, 'What is this nonsense? I, who was trooper in Page... pyre. It was this great sorrow that made him become a sannyasin. Sakharia Baba was very fond of Sri Aurobindo's brother Barin, who was at one time his disciple. It was Barin who had taken him to the Surat Congress. "Tall and fair," recalled Barin, "a straight body draped in an ochre robe, a shaven head, staff in hand, and hanging from his shoulder a cloth-bag ever full of sugar candy, and a smiling face ...
... leaders to come forward as the acknowledged head of the party in Bengal and to appear on the platform for the first time as a Page 7 speaker. He presided over the Nationalist Conference at Surat in 1907 where in the forceful clash of two equal parties the Congress was broken to pieces. In May, 1908, he was arrested in the Alipur Conspiracy Case as implicated in the doings of the revolutionary ...
... released on bail. He resigns his post of principal of the Bengal National College, giving on August 23 a speech to the students and teachers. Acquitted a month later. 1907, Dec. At the Surat session of the Congress, the Nationalist party with Sri Aurobindo presiding over its conference breaks away from the Moderates First session of the Muslim League at Karachi. ...
... qualified now, have mostly perished in the storm of repression which broke on the Nationalists after the unnatural alliance between coercive conciliation and an Indian progressive party previous to the Surat Congress,—an alliance not then declared, but sufficiently proved by the conduct and utterances of Sir Pherozshah Mehta and Mr. Gokhale then and after. It is evident, therefore, that if we accepted the ...
... European body. British Unfitness for Liberty By all Anglo-Indian papers it was triumphantly announced as a conclusive proof of the unfitness of the Indian people for self-government that the Surat Congress should have been broken up by the storming of the platform when passions were highly excited and relations between parties at breaking-point. Every ordinary sign of excitement at a public meeting ...
... Bengal which may prove strong enough to separate the Bengal Moderate leaders from the ranks of pure Moderatism in this crucial matter. It is curious that while trying to throw the whole blame of the Surat fiasco on the Nationalists, the Bombay Moderates have never concealed the fact that it was their intention to jockey the Nationalists out of the Congress. Their chief organ openly declared that it had ...
... the occasion of scenes of tumult, confusion and chaos which were painful to all lovers of orderly procedure. The only remedy is the frank acceptance of the principle of democratic representation. At Surat when the Bengali delegates were electing their representatives on the Subjects Committee, Srijut Surendranath Banerji let fall a remarkable expression of sentiment which explains the difficulty felt ...
... Speeches 22.Dec.1907 - 1.Feb.1908 Bande Mataram Speeches On 21 December 1907, Sri Aurobindo left Calcutta to attend the Surat session of the Indian National Congress. The next day he addressed a meeting in Nagpur. After the violent break-up of the Congress he passed a few days in Baroda, and then visited a number of cities in Maharashtra at the ...
... outvoted, they made no protest and have not separated themselves from the action of the Convention. We take it therefore that when the Moderate Convention under the usurped name of the Congress meets at Surat in December, they will take part in it with Dr. Rash Behari Ghose at their head. If so, they sever themselves from the country and forfeit their political future in Bengal, but their position is in ...
... History very seldom records the things that were decisive but took place behind the veil; it records the show in front of the curtain. Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Himself and the Ashram: The Surat Congress (1907) It looked as if the advance of the German armies was unstoppable in those days of August 1914, and the fate of Paris and the whole of France seemed sealed. The Germans had followed ...
... all of which was written in a very short time. But pranayama without expert guidance is dangerous, and when he stopped practising it in Calcutta, he nearly paid with his life. Shortly after the Surat conference, Aurobindo went to Baroda to meet some of his former friends and acquaintances and to reconnoitre the political lay of the land. There he met, through Barin, the tantric yogi Vishnu Bhaskar ...
... excuse me for the expression, but there is no other that is adequate. The only truth about it is that I am not demonstrative or expansive in public—but I never was. Nevinson seeing me presiding at the Surat Nationalist Conference—which was not a joke and other people were as serious as myself—spoke of me as that most. politically dangerous of men, "the man who never smiles" which made people who knew me ...
... Aurobindo did not accept. The Moderates in Bengal, under the leadership of Surendranath Bannerjee, were anxious to come to an understanding with the Nationalist leaders so as to repair the split at Surat. Sri Aurobindo led the Nationalist delegates to a conference at Hoogly which was attended by the Moderates as well. He was also present at a few private meetings called by Surendranath to explore the ...
... Harvey, accentuated the confrontation. In the Nationalist Movement, he backed Bal Gangadhar Tilak. He led a contingent (which included the poet Subramaniam Bharati) from the Madras Presidency to the Surat Congress (1907) where the Congress had split into two camps — the Extremists and the Moderates. By the time he returned, he had become the most popular leader of the Extremists in South India — galvanising ...
... textile industry, whose cotton, silk, and woolen products were marketed in Europe and Asia. It had remarkable ancient skills in iron working. It had its own shipbuilding industry in Calcutta, Daman, Surat and Bombay. In 1802 skilled Indian workers were building British warships at Bombay. According to a historian of Indian shipping, the teak wood vessels of Bombay were greatly superior to the oaken walls ...
... The British came to India as traders early in the 17th century. The Moghul emperor Jehangir permitted the English to trade in India in 1608. As a result, the English established a factory at Surat. However, India's connection with the West had started earlier with the Portuguese, who were the first Europeans to establish themselves in India and the last to leave. They arrived as early as 1498 ...
... Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal, among many others. As seen in the earlier chapters, this section of the Congress triggered a militant national awakening all over the country. The split in the Congress at Surat did not weaken the freedom movement; on the contrary it only strengthened it and its repercussions were felt all over India, particularly in Maharashtra, Punjab and South India. The political national ...
... not know how to begin again. I wanted spiritual experience and political action together. I would not take up a method that required me to give up action and life. When I came to Baroda from the Surat Congress, Barin had written to me that he knew a certain yogi to whom he would introduce me at Baroda. Barin sent a wire to Leie from Baroda and he came. At that time I was staying at Khasirao Jadhava's ...
... laughed. SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. I met him twice, once in Bengal at Subodh Mullick's place. I was very serious at that time. The next occasion was when I was president of the National Conference at Surat. Then also I couldn't laugh, being the President. So he called me "the man who never laughs". (Laughter) NIRODBARAN: Taggart regarded you as the most dangerous man in the British Empire. He was ...
... a thousand hymns in praise of the Divine Mother, embodying the quintessence of all Her aspects and invoking Her grace for the freedom of the Motherland. Soon thereafter Appa led a small group to Surat. [13] In August 1908, Bharatiar and his friends moved to Pondicherry. [14] Appa first visited Sri Aurobindo here, Amma said, in 1911. Sri Aurobindo discouraged him from throwing himself ...
... you called Dutt to your house. It was a single-storied house, he said, rather low, with a low basement or ground floor. SRI AUROBINDO: When was it? If it was my house it must have been after the Surat Congress when Lele came to Calcutta. NIRODBARAN: May be. Dutt entered the house, found you and Lele sitting while Chaki was loitering outside. SRI AUROBINDO: Chaki was there? NIRODBARAN: Yes ...
... 1940 Talks with Sri Aurobindo 17 FEBRUARY 1940 NIRODBARAN: It is reported by Dutt that, apprehensive of a big row at the Surat Congress and the risk of physical injury to you, your friends made special arrangements with Barin to keep you safe. SRI AUROBINDO: I don't know about any row. A Maratha leader—a lieutenant—came to me and asked me whether they ...
... politics and spirituality, 257-8; on Morley, 259-60; on Anglo-Indian administrators, 260; on Tilak, 263,267-8; on Gujarat and Gujaratis, 264; at Midnapore Conference, 265, 270; Nevinson on, 269; at Surat Congress, 269ff; order to break the Congress, 271; on "Death or Life", 272; with Yogi Lele at Baroda, 274ff; Nirvanic experience, 275,322,362, 371,388-9, 572; at Poona, 276; on Ramamurti's feats, 276 ...
... what the Congress would not do —a national Page 36 agitation in the country to make the Congress movement a living and acting force. He was the leader of the 'extremist' group at Surat in 1907 when the first split occured in the National Congress. He was "one of the two or three leaders of the Indian people who were in their eyes the incarnations of the national endeavour and the ...
... trial in September with regard to certain articles that had appeared in Bande Mataram, but the prosecution failed, and he was acquitted. December 1907 Sri Aurobindo attended the Surat Congress and in alliance with Tilak and other Nationalist 'Extremists' broke with the Moderates led by Phirozeshah Mehta and G.K. Gokhale, so the Congress ended in a fiasco. Page 10 ...
... his characteristic directness, drive and enthusiasm. It is hoped that the book will provide a brief but helpful introduction to Sri Aurobindo's poem. Ambalal Balkrishna Purani was born in Surat, Gujarat, in 1894. Inspired as a young man by Sri Aurobindo, then a leader of the Indian National Movement, Purani helped to launch a youth movement which gained widespread popularity in Gujarat ...
... 1907 certain broad directions for revolutionary activity in Gujarat, and Barindra had given the formula for making bombs. As a boy, Ambalal had heard Sri Aurobindo at Baroda in 1908, just after the Surat Congress - "heard him without understanding everything that was spoken". 28 In 1914, as a student in college, he had become an advance subscriber to the Arya having seen an advertisement in the ...
... became the National Anthem. It was sung across the length and breadth of India, and sung fervently. Sri Aurobindo translated the song into English, spoke about it and wrote about it. After the Surat Congress, Sri Aurobindo had to give lectures wherever he went. On Wednesday 29 January 1908 he delivered one in the Grand Square of the National School, at Amraoti, in Berar. The meeting had commenced ...
... to be together. They are disturbed only when a big, black crow comes to eat. Then, in a flurry of wings, all the small birds fly away. I am often reminded of Sri Aurobindo's description at the Surat Congress of December 1907. "Rich, poor, Brahmin, businessman, Shudra, Bengali, Mahratta, Punjabi, Gujarati, we all stayed, slept, ate together with a wonderful feeling of brotherhood." There is the ...
... command naturally. There is no doubt that this commotion in the interior of the community will surely bring about some divine work. This agitation is certainly not propelled by human will. We went to Surat with a particular motive. We went to the Congress in order to propagate our views and doctrines. But there something different happened. The other party assembled there with the same purpose, but they ...
... crush them and would have crushed them long ago if there had not been a greater Power which willed that these little flickering lights should not be extinguished. During the Nationalist Conference at Surat it was decided to set on foot a Press Conference for the better preservation of and mutual assistance and constant communication between the papers which are struggling under heart-breaking difficulties ...
... most suitable to itself. But if the Congress is to be a Congress of all opinions and not of one section only, the Constitution must be so drafted as to remove the causes of quarrel which led up to the Surat fiasco. One of these was the conflict between authority and freedom in the proceedings of the session. The Moderates stand for official authority, the Nationalists for the freedom of debate and the ...
... boycott. They are always ready in principle to accept the decision of the Congress for the time being, reserving the right to get that decision altered in the future. The severity of the struggle at Surat was due to the attempt to use a local majority in order to effect a revolution in the Congress constitution, which would turn it into a Moderate Congress and exclude the Nationalist element altogether ...
... ground that this new movement, as it is divinely decreed, cannot proceed on the basis of strict consistency of individual conduct from any individual standpoint. The breaking up of the Congress at Surat was God's will and if it can meet again on a basis of union that would also come from His will. If, again, all our efforts at union fail and the New party be compelled to face troubles and persecutions ...
... have declared that they will have no share in those sufferings, no part or lot in the great struggle of the future. It is well. We need waste no farther time in seeking a union with the men who before Surat had resolved on a disruption motived by the desire of bureaucratic favour and the fear of bureaucratic displeasure. The day of compromises is past. Frank, clear and unmistakable let the great issue ...
... baser type, who desire the continuance of the British absolutism out of self-interest and not from any love of it or conviction of its goodness and utility. It is these men who have brought about the Surat fiasco, the Convention, the creed and the Allahabad constitution, and the Surendranaths and Gokhales have been tools in their hands. Conventionalism is a factor in our politics which makes for reaction ...
... nation rose above Swadeshi to Swaraj. It is time that it left the path of self-realisation through disguises and side-issues and flung itself frankly and wholly into the attempt to win Swaraj. The Surat Page 1085 split took place over the side-issue of the President's election, but the Convention's attitude has brushed away all side-issues and brought to the front the question of Swaraj ...
... we have two courses open to us, either to separate from the dictator-ridden Congress altogether and hold a Nationalist Conference at Nagpur or to leave the Loyalists to a purely Moderate Congress at Surat and according as they act, decide our future course. In any case we think there should be a council of leading men of our party at Nagpur in December to confer on our future action, for in view of the ...
... 1905 was due to the union of Moderate and Nationalist on the platform of self-help and passive resistance. It was in order to provide an opportunity for the reestablishment of this union, broken at Surat, that the Nationalists gathered in force at Hughly in order to secure some basis and means of negotiation which might lead to united effort. The hand which we held out, has been rejected. The policy ...
... Feb- ruary 1907. This is evidently a slip. In February 1907 Sri Aurobindo was staying in Deoghar. The house in Scott's Lane does not seem to have been taken till after Sri Aurobindo's return from Surat in February 1908. In 1909 the judge in the Alipore bomb-case, evaluating the letter as evidence, said of it, "dated 17th February 1907 - obviously a mistake for 1908." (Bijoy Krishna Bose, Ed., The ...
... high and she has a turn of her feet reminiscent of ballet dancers in fifth position. She lives in the main Ashram compound near the Samadhi above what used to be the fruit room. She was born in Surat, Gujarat, on January 5 th . She told me that the year is unknown as her parents kept shifting her horoscope, but it is supposed to have been around the mid 1920s. She was brought to the Ashram when ...
... modern world it is only the up to date that is true. I have read the letter with interest. What a world! Disorder, ____________________ 1. Ambalal Balkrishna Purani was born (26 May 1894) in Surat, Gujarat. Revolution and Yoga were in his nature. His elder brother C. B. Purani became a revolutionary in 1907 under Barindra Kumar Ghose. With his brother, our Purani formed a secret revolutionary ...
... and Rishikanyas: sons and daughters of Rishis. 98. Duraiswami lyer, an eminent and brilliant advocate of the Madras High Court and Sri Aurobindo's disciple. He had seen Sri Aurobindo at the Surat Congress in December 1907 where he had gone as a volunteer from South India. Later, in March 1942, Sri Aurobindo sent him as his personal envoy to the Congress leaders to urge them to accept Sir Stafford ...
... writings and glowing brilliant vision for a few fleeting moments. I was no doubt observing and intermittently contacting him from 1901 to 1909 - more particularly in 1907 at the time of the Surat Congress; I was never in his circle. I drew the inspiration from Bande Mataram and from one or two friends who were in close contact with him. I knew Lele, and Pandya who was in close touch with ...
... concentration of my whole being turns towards India’s freedom. It is difficult for me to sleep till that is secured.’ 43 He was from Baroda and had heard Sri Aurobindo give speeches there after the Surat Conference, at the time of his first meeting with Lele. ‘Ever since I had seen him I had got the constant feeling that he was known to me.’ Purani had subscribed to the Arya and even translated it ...
... working behind the scenes, the second at the [district] 1 Conference at Midnapur where he for the first time acted publicly as the leader of the Bengal Nationalists, and the final break took place at Surat in 1907. × MS Bengal Provincial. See Table 1, page 566 .—Ed. ...
... Bengal, but Sri Aurobindo did not hear of any discovery of a suitable place. Sakaria Swami was Barin's Guru: he had been a fighter in the Mutiny on the rebel side and he showed at the breaking of the Surat Congress a vehement patriotic excitement which caused his death because it awoke the poison of the bite of a mad dog which he had reduced to inactivity by a process of his Yogic will; but Sri Aurobindo ...
... that time. Afterwards, under the same "sailing orders", I left Chandernagore and reached Pondicherry on April 4th 1910. I may add in explanation that from the time I left Lele at Bombay after the Surat Congress and my stay with him in Baroda, Poona and Bombay, I had accepted the rule of following the inner guidance implicitly and moving only as I was moved by the Divine. The spiritual development ...
... excuse me for the expression, but there is no other that is adequate. The only truth about it is that I am not demonstrative or expansive in public—but I never was. Nevinson seeing me presiding at the Surat Nationalist Conference—which was not a joke and others were as serious as myself—spoke of me as that most politically dangerous of men—"the man who never smiles" which made people who knew me smile ...
... as explained to him by a friend, a disciple of Brahmananda. Afterwards faced with difficulties, he took the help of Lele who was called for the purpose from Gwalior by Barindra—this was after the Surat Congress in 1908. There was no difference of opinion [ with the College authorities ]; the resignation was because of the Bande Mataram case, so as not to embarrass the authorities. After the ...
... also had Yogic control. One day he saw a mad dog coming towards him. He held out his hand for the dog to bite. After the bite he didn't allow the poison go into the system but localised it. When the Surat Congress was over, he got exited and thus lost control and the poison spread in his body. He got hydrophobia and couldn't drink water. He said "What is this nonsense? I, who was a trooper in the Mutiny ...
... Anilbaran says you may not remember these incidents. PURANI: That is not possible. When circumstances and events are described, one can bring them back to memory. CHAMPAKLAL: Dutt says that at the Surat Congress Sri Aurobindo was protected by men with pistols. DR. MANILAL: Was there any chance of personal injury, Sir? SRI AUROBINDO: Not that I know of. Only Satyen Bose was with me and he had ...
... They were taking down the names of people who favoured the movement and you gave yours. SRI AUROBINDO: When and where? PURANI: At Delhi. SRI AUROBINDO: Delhi station? PURANI: After the Surat Congress. SRI AUROBINDO: Can't be. I don't think I went to Delhi after it. It must have been somebody else and he mistook him for me. PURANI: You are supposed to have gone about places for propaganda ...
... Remove that "cornice"! PURANI: One Pradhan, an M.L.C. of Bombay, has written a letter asking for darshan and wanting to meet you. He says he had the privilege of translating your speech at the Surat Congress and that you may know him. SRI AUROBINDO: How can I know him? Anyone could stand up and translate my speech. You can tell him that I give only silent darshan three times a year. It won't ...
... Aurobindo in his book The New Spirit in India. Here are two extracts from that book, which among others helped to reinforce in the popular mind the above-mentioned image of Sri Aurobindo: In the Surat Congress session of December 1907, "Grave and silent -1 think without saying a single word - Mr. Aravinda Ghose took the chair, and sat unmoved, with far-off eyes, as one who gazes at futurity...." ...
... called on to preside over the first National Assembly ever yet convened in India. Looking round he saw the representatives of all the important centres of the Bombay Presidency, Karachi, Ahmedabad, Surat, Poona, Bombay itself, and other less populous though still important, towns; almost every district in the Madras Presidency was represented, as well as the towns of Madras, Salem, Coimbatore and others ...
... detention in Mandalay had left a deep imprint on Tilak's personality. Tilak who was always a practical politician emerged a more cautious man. As seen earlier, the Congress had split in 1907 at the Surat session. But Tilak was not happy about the split. As remarked by Sri Aurobindo: '[T]o no one was the catastrophe so great a blow as to Mr. Tilak. He did not like the do-nothingness of the Congress but ...
... India with his eyes wide open, and his mind sympathetically attuned to the pulse of the new life which he witnessed all over India, had a talk with Sri Aurobindo in Calcutta, and saw him again at Surat during the famous session of the Indian National Congress. He writes in his book. The New Spirit in India: "He was a youngish man, I should think still 149. Character Sketches by Bepin ...
... Sri Aurobindo - some aspects of His Vision THE AUTHOR Born at Surat in 1893, 'Sri Ambubhai Purani had his early education in Bombay, from where he graduated on 1913. Together with his illustrious brother Sri Chhotubhai Purani, he pioneered the gymnastic movement in Gujarat. It was at this time that he came under the spell of Sri Aurobindo and yearned ...
... : I met him in Bombay when we took the vow with Dr. Deshmukh to secure the independence of India. He was also one of those who took the oath and soon afterwards turned round. When I was going to Surat to attend the Congress I got down at Nagpur and had to give a lecture in the theatre there and I saw Moropant sitting there on one of the front benches gaping at me !" 24-10-1925 There ...
... sadhana and of life. And yet the whirl of politics and the ceaseless excitement of political journalism, in which he was unavoidably caught on his return to Calcutta about two months after the Surat Congress and the experience of the static Brahman in Baroda, wasn't an ideal background for Yogic sadhana. There were conflicting pulls, there were underground rumblings, there were lightning flashes ...
... Before the seat of the lonely One. 60 XII Among others, there was Satyendra Thakore from Gujarat. He had seen Sri Aurobindo, along with other leaders, in a procession at the time of the Surat Congress of December 1907. Later, as a college student, he read some of Sri Aurobindo's smaller books, and later still, came in possession of a nearly complete set of the Arya rya volumes. After ...
... and become Acting Principal of the Baroda College, he withdrew from that prison of affluent security and plunged into the maelstrom of politics and revolution; at the height of his influence after Surat, he withdrew to a quietude of Nirvanic calm in Page 741 a small room in Baroda - then Narayana withdrew him to the Alipur jail so that he could continue his sādhanā - and still ...
... V. O. C. and Siva were released on 24 December 1912. and kept under close surveillance. Page 199 To begin with they were Nationalists. V. O. C. and Bharati had even attended the Surat Congress, forming part of a group of thirty from Madras. As such they tried to put into practice the scheme of the Nationalists 'to prepare the nation' for regeneration. "The schemes by which we seek ...
... Aurobindo becomes the leader of the Nationalist party in Bengal. December 7-9 - Sri Aurobindo is the leader of the Nationalists at the Bengal Provincial Conference at Midnapore. Dec. 26-27 -The Surat session of the Congress, which ends in a break-up; on the 28 th , Sri Aurobindo presides over the conference of the Nationalists. 1908, January - Sri Aurobindo meets the Maharashtrian yogi Vishnu ...
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