Chapter 194Part Five - Speeches

22 December 1907–1 February 1908 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 invitation of Nationalist colleagues. In all of these places he gave speeches, most of which have been preserved in one form or another. See the next page for details.

All told, Sri Aurobindo delivered fourteen speeches in Maha-rashtra between 22 December 1907 and 1 February 1908. Re-ports of eleven of them survive. Two were published in the Bande Mataram shortly after their delivery. Another was published in the Mahratta, an English weekly newspaper. Five others are known only by means of Marathi translations, while three exist only in the form of summaries or transcriptions made by the British police. There are no surviving reports of the remaining three speeches.

22 December 1907

Nagpur

Police report 12 January 1908

Poona

No known report 13 January

Poona

English report 15 January

Bombay

Marathi report 19 January

Bombay

English report 24 January

Nasik

Marathi report 25 January

Nasik

Police report 26 January

Dhulia

Police report 27 January

Akola

No known report 28 January

Amravati

No known report 29 January

Amravati

English report 30 January

Nagpur

Marathi report 31 January

Nagpur

Marathi report 1 February

Nagpur

Marathi report In the following pages, nine reports are reproduced. Only the representations of Sri Aurobindo’s words. The other reports are expressed in language that is sometimes awkward or defective; they have been edited to a greater or lesser extent to make them more clear and readable.