Chapter 194Part Five - Speeches

Part 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 two published in Bande Mataram may be considered adequate 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.