Chapter 39Open Letters Published in Newspapers, 1909–1925 · To the Editor of the New India

my shishyas, instructed by me to undertake this or that activity, and request people to pay money for work or for my maintenance. After this letter I hope they will lose this easy source of income. I have authorised no such youths to collect money on my behalf and have directed none to undertake any political activity of any description. Finally I find myself besieged by devotees who insist on seeing me whether I will or not. They have crossed all India to see me — from Karachi’s waters, from the rivers of the Panjab, whence do they not come? They only wish to stand at a distance and get mukti by gazing on my face; or they will sit at my feet, live with me wherever I am or follow me to whatever lands. They clamber on to my windows to see me or loiter and write letters from neighbouring Police-stations. I wish to inform all future pilgrims of the kind that their journey will be in vain and to request those to whom they may give reports of myself and my imaginary conversations, to disbelieve entirely whatever they may say. I am living in entire retirement and see none but a few local friends and the few gentlemen of position who care to see me when they come to Pondicherry. I have written thus at length in order to safeguard myself against the deliberate manufacture or mistaken growth of “evidence” against me, e.g. such as the statement in the Nasik case that I was “maintained” by the Mitra Mela. I need hardly tell my countrymen that I have never been a paid agitator, still less a “maintained” revolutionist, but one whom even hostile Mahatmas admit to be without any pecuniary or other axe to grind. Nor have I ever received any payment for any political work except occasional payments for contributions

published 24 February 1911

[3]

Babu Aurobindo Ghose

Babu Aurobindo Ghose writes to us from Pondicherry: — An Anglo-Indian paper of some notoriety both for its language and views, has recently thought fit to publish a libellous leaderette and subsequently an article openly arraigning me as a director of Anarchist societies, a criminal and an assassin. Neither the assertions nor the opinions of the Madras Times carry much weight in themselves and I might have passed over the attack in silence. But I have had reason in my political career to suspect that there are police officials on the one side and propagandists of violent revolution on the other hand who would only be too glad to use any authority for bringing in my name as a supporter of Terrorism and assassination. Holding it inexpedient under such circumstances to keep silence, I wrote to the paper pointing out the gross inaccuracy of the statements in its leaderette, but the Times seems to have thought it more discreet to avoid the exposure of its fictions in its own columns. I am obliged therefore to ask you for the opportunity of reply denied to me in the paper by which I am attacked.

The Anglo-Indian Journal asserts, (1) that I have adopted the saffron robes of the ascetic, but “continue to direct” the movements of the Anarchist society from Pondicherry; (2) that one Balkrishna Lele, a Lieutenant of Mr. Tilak, is in Pondicherry for the same purpose; (3) that the most dangerous of the Madras Anarchists (it is not clear whether one or many) is or are at Pondicherry; (4) that a number of seditious journals are being openly published from French India; (5) that revolutionary literature is being manufactured and circulated from Pondicherry, parts of which the police have intercepted, but the rest has reached its destination and is the cause of the Ashe murder.

It is untrue that I am masquerading or have ever masquer-aded as an ascetic; I live as a simple householder practising Yoga without sannyas just as I have been practising it for the last six years. It is untrue that any Balkrishna Lele or any lieutenant of Mr. Tilak is at Pondicherry; nor do I know, I doubt if anybody in India except Madras Times knows, of any Mahratta politician of that name and description. The statement about Madras An-archists is unsupported by facts or names and therefore avoids any possibility of reply. It is untrue that any seditious journal is being published from French India. The paper India was discontinued in April, 1910, and has never been issued since.

The only periodicals published from Pondicherry are the Tamil Dharma and Karmayogi which, I am informed, do not touch politics; in any case, the harmless nature of their contents, is proved by the free circulation allowed to them in British India even under the rigours of the Press Act. As to the production of revolutionary literature, my enquiries have satisfied me, — and I think the investigations of the police must have led to the same result, — that the inflammatory Tamil pamphlets recently in circulation cannot have been printed with the present material of the two small presses owned by Nationalists. In the nature of things nobody can assert the impossibility of secret dissemination from Pondicherry or any other particular locality. As to the actuality, I can only say that the sole publications of the kind that have reached me personally since my presence here became public, have either come direct from France or America or once only from another town in this Presidency. This would seem to show that Pondicherry, if at all guilty in this respect, has not the monopoly of the trade. Moreover, though we hear occasionally of active dissemination in some localities of British India, the residents of Pondicherry are unaware of any noticeable activity of this kind in their midst. Finally, the impression which the Times seeks sedulously to create that Pondicherry is swarming with dangerous people from British India, ignores facts grossly. To my knowledge, there are not more than half a dozen British Indians here who can be said to have crossed the border for political reasons. So much for definite assertions; I shall refer to the general slander in a subsequent letter.

published 20 July 1911

[4]

Babu Aurobindo Ghose.

Babu Aurobindo Ghose writes to us from Pondicherry: — In continuation of my last letter, I proceed to deal with the allegation that I “continue to direct Anarchist activities from Pondicherry,” an allegation self-condemned by the gross implied imputation of a charge from which I have been exonerated by British tribunals. Here too a simple statement of facts will be the best answer. My political conduct has been four times under scrutiny by different tribunals and each time the result has been favourable to me. I have been twice accused of sedition. In the first case I was charged, not as responsible for the editorial as infringing the law while I was connected with the paper, but for a stray correspondence and a technical violation of the law by the reproduction of articles in connection with a sedition case; my freedom from responsibility was overwhelmingly established by the prosecution evidence itself, the only witness to the contrary, a dismissed proof-reader picked up by the police, destroying his own evidence in cross examination. In the second, an article over my signature was somewhat hastily impugned by the authorities and declared inoffensive by the highest tribunal in the land. The article was so clearly unexceptionable on the face of it that the judges had to open the hearing of the appeal by expressing their inability to find the sedition alleged! My name has been brought twice into conspiracy trials. In the Alipur Case, after a protracted trial and detention in jail for a year, I was ac-quitted, the Judge condemning the document which was the only substantial evidence of a guilty connection. Finally, my name was dragged prominently into the Howrah Case by an approver whose evidence was declared by three High Court Judges to be utterly unreliable, — a man, I may add, of whose very name and existence I was ignorant till his arrest at Darjeeling. I think I am entitled to emphasise the flimsy grounds on which in all the cases proceedings originated, so far as I was concerned. Even in the Alipur trial, beyond an unverified information and the facts that my brother was the leader of the conspiracy and frequented my house, there was no original ground for involving me in the legal proceedings. After so many ordeals, I may claim that up to my cessation of political activity my public record stands absolved from blame.

I left British India in order to pursue my practice of Yoga undisturbed either by my old political connections or by the