Chapter 9On Indian Independence, 1942–1947 · The Fifteenth of August 1947

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In view of the urgency of the situation I am sending Mr.. Durai-swami Iyer to convey my views on the present negotiations and my reasons for pressing on Indian leaders the need of a settlement. He is accredited to speak for me.2

Sri Aurobindo April 1. 1942

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[Telegram to Dr. B. S. Moonje]

DR MOONJE HINDU MAHASABHA NEW DELHI

SETTLEMENT INDIA BRITAIN URGENT, FACE APPROACH GRAVE PERIL MENACING FUTURE INDIA. IS THERE NO WAY WHILE RESERV- ING RIGHT REPUDIATE RESIST PARTITION MOTHERLAND TO AC- CEPT COOPERATION PURPOSE WAR INDIA UNION. CANNOT COMBI- NATION MAHASABHA CONGRESS NATIONALIST AND ANTI-JINNAH MUSLIMS DEFEAT LEAGUE IN ELECTIONS BENGAL PUNJAB SIND.

HAVE SENT ADVOCATE DURAISWAMI IYER TO MEET YOU.

SRI AUROBINDO

2 April 1942

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[Telegram to C. Rajagopalachari]

RAJAGOPALACHARI BIRLA HOUSE NEW DELHI

IS NOT COMPROMISE DEFENCE QUESTION BETTER THAN RUP- TURE. SOME IMMEDIATE SETTLEMENT URGENT FACE GRAVE PERIL.

HAVE SENT DURAISWAMI INSIST URGENCY. APPEAL TO YOU TO SAVE INDIA FORMIDABLE DANGER NEW FOREIGN DOMINATION WHEN OLD ON WAY TO SELF-ELIMINATION.

SRI AUROBINDO

2 April 1942 2 Sri Aurobindo gave this note to his disciple Duraiswami Iyer, an advocate of Madras, whom he sent to Delhi to speak with members of the Congress Working Committee about the Cripps Proposal. — Ed.

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[Telegram to Amarendra Chatterjee]

AMARENDRA CHATTERJEE M.L.A.

DELHI UNABLE LEAVE PONDICHERRY. AWAITING CONGRESS DECISION NECESSARY FOR TOTAL NATIONAL ACTION. HAVE APPEALED PRI- VATELY CONGRESS LEADERS FOR UNDERSTANDING WITH BRITAIN AND FIGHT DEFENCE INDIA.

Sri Aurobindo April 9. 1942

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[Second telegram to Amarendra Chatterjee]

MY BLESSINGS ON YOUR EFFORTS TO SERVE AND DEFEND MOTHER- LAND NOW IN DANGER.

Sri Aurobindo

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Sri Aurobindo Asram Pondicherry June 15, 1945 We heard the Viceroy’s broadcast yesterday.3 Sri Aurobindo says the proposals are decent enough and seem to be even better than Cripps’ in certain respects. An Indian will be in charge of foreign affairs and India will have her own representative in foreign countries. This and other circumstances are an approach practically towards Dominion Status. Of course, there are a few features which personally Sri Aurobindo would not advocate, e.g. the apparent foundation of the Ministry on a communal 3 This press release was dictated by Sri Aurobindo and issued over the signature of his secretary, Nolini Kanta Gupta. — Ed.

basis instead of a coalition of parties. Still these should not be a reason for the rejection of the proposals. A fair trial should be given and the scheme tested in its actual working out.

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[Telegram to Dr. Syed Mahmood]

PROPOSALS BETTER THAN CRIPPS’ OFFER ACCEPTANCE ADVISABLE.

15 June 1945

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Sri Aurobindo thinks it unnecessary to volunteer a personal pronouncement, though he would give his views if officially ap-proached for them.4 His position is known. He has always stood for India’s complete independence which he was the first to advocate publicly and without compromise as the only ideal worthy of a self-respecting nation. In 1910 he authorised the publication of his prediction that after a long period of wars, world-wide up-heavals and revolutions beginning after four years, India would achieve her freedom. Lately he has said that freedom was coming soon and nothing could prevent it. He has always foreseen that eventually Britain would approach India for an amicable agreement conceding her freedom. What he had foreseen is now coming to pass and the British Cabinet Mission is the sign. It remains for the nation’s leaders to make a right and full use of the opportunity. In any case, whatever the immediate outcome, the Power that has been working out this event will not be denied, the final result, India’s liberation, is sure.

24.3.1946 4 This press release was written by Sri Aurobindo and issued over the signature of Nolini Kanta Gupta. — Ed.

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Dec. 16, 1946 Dear Surendra Mohan

I have shown your letter to Sri Aurobindo. It raises some serious misgivings.5

What do you mean by saying that the Congress may have to accept the group system? Do you mean to say that the Moslem League majority on both sides of India are to be allowed to have their way and dictate the constitution for all the provinces in the two groups and also a general constitution for each of the two groups overriding the autonomy of the provinces? That would mean that the Sikhs, the Frontier Province and Assam are to be thrown to the wolves, offered as an appeasing sacrifice to Jinnah. It would mean the establishment of a divided Pakistan of which the two portions, Eastern and Western, would ultimately and indeed very soon unite and secede from any All-India Union that might be established; for that is the policy of the League. Will the Sikhs consent to be thus placed under Mussulman domination? They have declared emphatically that they will not, they will follow the Congress only so long as the Congress keeps to its promise not to support any constitution disapproved by the Sikhs. As for Assam, will the Assamese consent to commit suicide? For that is what the grouping means if it is a majority vote that decides in the group. The Hindus of Bengal and Assam joining together in the section of the Assembly will not have a majority. This opens a prospect that the League in this group may dictate a constitution which will mean the end of the Assamese people and of Hinduism in Assam. They may so arrange that the tribes of Assam are constituted into a separate element not participating in the Assam Provincial Assembly but parked off 5 This letter was sent over the signature of Nolini Kanta Gupta. The recipient was Surendramohan Ghosh, a Bengal Congress leader who was then serving as a member of the Constituent Assembly in Delhi. Surendramohan had written to Nolini explaining some of the provisions of the Cabinet Mission proposals. Sri Aurobindo’s dictated reply was written down by his amanuensis, Nirodbaran. In transcribing this, Nolini made some necessary changes to the opening, putting for instance “what do you mean by” where Sri Aurobindo had said “He might be asked what is meant by”. — Ed.

from it. The constituencies of the province could then be so ar-ranged as to give the Mussulmans an automatic majority. Assam could then be flooded with Mahomedan colonies from Bengal and Assam be made safe for Pakistan; after that the obliteration of Hinduism in the province could be carried out either by an immediate and violent or a gradual process once the separation of India into Pakistan and Hindusthan had been effected.

We hope your leaders are alive to the dangers of the situation. I am eagerly awaiting an answer from you.

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[Long Version]6 August 15th is the birthday of free India. It marks for her the end of an old era, the beginning of a new age. But it has a significance not only for us, but for Asia and the whole world; for it signifies the entry into the comity of nations of a new power with untold potentialities which has a great part to play in determining the political, social, cultural and spiritual future of humanity. To me personally it must naturally be gratifying that this date which was notable only for me because it was my own birthday celebrated annually by those who have accepted my gospel of life, should have acquired this vast significance. As a mystic, I take this identification, not as a coincidence or fortuitous accident, but as a sanction and seal of the Divine Power which guides my steps on the work with which I began life. Indeed almost all the world movements which I hoped to see fulfilled in my lifetime, though at that time they looked like impossible dreams, I can observe on this day either approaching fruition or initiated and on the way to their achievement.

I have been asked for a message on this great occasion, but 6 Sri Aurobindo wrote this message at the request of All India Radio, Tiruchirapalli, for broadcast on the eve of the day when India achieved independence, 15 August 1947. The text submitted was found to be too long for the allotted time-slot. Sri Aurobindo revised it, and the shorter version (pages 478–80) was broadcast on 14 August 1947.

I am perhaps hardly in a position to give one. All I can do is to make a personal declaration of the aims and ideals conceived in my childhood and youth and now watched in their beginning of fulfilment, because they are relevant to the freedom of India, since they are a part of what I believe to be India’s future work, something in which she cannot but take a leading position. For I have always held and said that India was arising, not to serve her own material interests only, to achieve expansion, greatness, power and prosperity, — though these too she must not neglect, — and certainly not like others to acquire domination of other peoples, but to live also for God and the world as a helper and leader of the whole human race. Those aims and ideals were in their natural order these: a revolution which would achieve India’s freedom and her unity; the resurgence and liberation of Asia and her return to the great role which she had played in the progress of human civilisation; the rise of a new, a greater, brighter and nobler life for mankind which for its entire realisa-tion would rest outwardly on an international unification of the separate existence of the peoples, preserving and securing their national life but drawing them together into an overriding and consummating oneness; the gift by India of her spiritual knowledge and her means for the spiritualisation of life to the whole race; finally, a new step in the evolution which, by uplifting the consciousness to a higher level, would begin the solution of the many problems of existence which have perplexed and vexed humanity, since men began to think and to dream of individual perfection and a perfect society.

India is free but she has not achieved unity, only a fissured and broken freedom. At one time it almost seemed as if she might relapse into the chaos of separate States which preceded the British conquest. Fortunately there has now developed a strong possibility that this disastrous relapse will be avoided. The wisely drastic policy of the Constituent Assembly makes it possible that the problem of the depressed classes will be solved without schism or fissure. But the old communal division into Hindu and Muslim seems to have hardened into the figure of a permanent political division of the country. It is to be hoped that the Congress and the nation will not accept the settled fact as for ever settled or as anything more than a temporary expedient. For if it lasts, India may be seriously weakened, even crippled: civil strife may remain always possible, possible even a new invasion and foreign conquest. The partition of the country must go, — it is to be hoped by a slackening of tension, by a progressive understanding of the need of peace and concord, by the constant necessity of common and concerted action, even of an instrument of union for that purpose. In this way unity may come about under whatever form — the exact form may have a pragmatic but not a fundamental importance. But by whatever means, the division must and will go. For without it the destiny of India might be seriously impaired and even frustrated. But that must not be.

Asia has arisen and large parts of it have been liberated or are at this moment being liberated; its other still subject parts are moving through whatever struggles towards freedom. Only a little has to be done and that will be done today or tomorrow. There India has her part to play and has begun to play it with an energy and ability which already indicate the measure of her possibilities and the place she can take in the council of the nations.

The unification of mankind is under way, though only in an imperfect initiative, organised but struggling against tremendous difficulties. But the momentum is there and, if the experience of history can be taken as a guide, it must inevitably increase until it conquers. Here too India has begun to play a prominent part and, if she can develop that larger statesmanship which is not limited by the present facts and immediate possibilities but looks into the future and brings it nearer, her presence may make all the difference between a slow and timid and a bold and swift development. A catastrophe may intervene and interrupt or destroy what is being done, but even then the final result is sure. For in any case the unification is a necessity in the course of Nature, an inevitable movement and its achievement can be safely foretold. Its necessity for the nations also is clear, for without it the freedom of the small peoples can never be safe