Aurobindo: An Ideologue of New Nationalism 9789356405707, 9356405700

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Praise for Aurobindo: An Ideologue of New Nationalism This new study of Aurobindo’s ideology of nationalism comes as an indispensable contribution to analysis of modern Indian political thought. It is imperative for two reasons. First, Bidyut Chakrabarty is a world renowned scholar whose range is truly extraordinary. Evidence of this is found in his  Confluence of Thought: Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. (2013), where Clayborne Carson, a leading King scholar, praised it in a Foreword as of inestimable value for western audiences. Since then, Professor Chakrabarty has provided a steady stream of crucial publications. Now comes a brilliant gem about the early philosophy of Sri Aurobindo, arguably the most underrated yet profound thinker of the nationalist period. An important analysis is Aurobindo’s vital argument for Hindu–Muslim unity, introduced in the first chapter and then astutely reiterated in the Conclusion. This controverts any interpretation of Aurobindo as an exclusivist advocate of Hindu chauvinism. The nexus of ideas formulated by Aurobindo is scrupulously examined here as ‘dialectically connected’, including his theories of  swaraj  as related to boycott, education and the Gita. All of this demonstrates the systematic web of thought that Aurobindo ingeniously developed until 1910. While other books on Aurobindo tend to focus on his later writings in Pondicherry, Chakrabarty shows how the foundations were firmly laid before Aurobindo’s departure. The use of original sources, particularly a close examination of Aurobindo’s works, is a distinctive feature that strengthens the study immeasurably. For these reasons of distinguished authorship combined with choice of a subject essential to our understanding of modern ideology, east or west, this work should rank at the top of ‘must-reads’.  —Dennis Dalton, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Barnard College, Columbia University, New York

AUROBINDO An Ideologue of New Nationalism, 1897–1910

Bidyut Chakrabarty

BLooMsBury india Bloomsbury Publishing india Pvt. Ltd second Floor, Lsc Building no. 4, dda complex, Pocket c – 6 & 7, Vasant Kunj, new delhi, 110070 BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC INDIA and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in india 2024 this edition published 2024 copyright © Bidyut Chakrabarty, 2024 Bidyut Chakrabarty has asserted his right under the indian copyright act to be identified as the Author of this work Bloomsbury Academic India An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without the prior permission in writing from the publishers this book is solely the responsibility of the author and the publisher has had no role in the creation of the content and does not have responsibility for anything defamatory or libellous or objectionable Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. all internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. the author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes isBn: HB: 978-93-56404-65-6; eBook: 978-93-56404-63-2; epdf: 978-93-56405-70-7 typeset by Manipal technologies Limited Bloomsbury Publishing Plc makes every effort to ensure that the papers used in the manufacture of our books are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in well-managed forests. Our manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

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To the universalist, Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore, who taught me to remain unrattled while pursuing the goals for human betterment.

CONTENTS Preface

ix

Introduction1 1 2 3 4 5

An Ideologue of New Nationalism or Democratic Nationalism 25 A Devout Nationalist 75 An Innovative Strategist 126 A Creative Educationist 183 A Spiritual Nationalist 227

Conclusion281 Notes Bibliographical Notes Bibliography Index About the Author

305 315 319 321 329

PREFACE An author chooses a topic for a book in accordance with their academic or intellectual priorities. It means that a book is an outcome of a selfish desire of the author who decides to dwell on themes in preference to many others. Accordingly, a design is prepared and materials (or data in modern parlance) are collected which are believed to be complementary to the author’s concerns. So, the articulation of an argument in the form of a book is the culmination of long-drawn processes. The publication of the manuscript follows a completely different trajectory. By being intimately attached to the transformation of raw ideas into a threadbare argumentation, the role of the author is, for obvious reasons, most critical. Hence, books are generally considered to be the author’s literary baby who, as one of my academic mentors said once, remains steadfast and loyal, unlike biological babies. There is another aspect which also bothers me when many of my colleagues happily withdraw from academic work once they are entrusted with administrative responsibilities on campus. The standard argument is couched with the claim that administrative duties have hardly left time for them to concentrate on their academic pursuits. My experiences as Head of the Department, Dean of the Faculty, member of the Executive Council and Vice Chancellor of one of the perhaps most troublesome universities in the country, however, do not conform to the claim because I strongly believe in the dictum that ‘if there is a will, there are ways’. Now, with the politicisation of academic appointments in most of the academic institutions across the country, the jobseekers know what to do to get an academic job which is perhaps the only job where one gets paid to study. The result is obvious. Most academic institutions are dwindling largely because the desire and inclination for their betterment seem lost. Amid the decadence, there are a few who keep on working to satisfy their academic thirst and remain viable academically. They are subject to vilification and are often dismissed as ‘fools’. Perhaps, that appears true because if one swims against the current, one is likely to be ostracised by those who seem to have happily chosen the path of avoiding the dharma of teachers. The object here is not to demoralise those opting for teaching as a matter of choice, but to reawaken them to their duties which, besides teaching, also include quality publications. What is the reason for this degeneration? It is difficult to answer so easily. One is required to write several monographs to exactly locate the roots. ix

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Aurobindo: An Ideologue of New Nationalism, 1897–1910 evolved out of curiosity to know why he opted for an exclusive spiritual life in the French colony, Pondicherry, even after being involved in the Revolutionary Nationalist campaign in Bengal. Again, to persuasively respond to this query, one monograph was not sufficient; but, it will, at least, set an area of enquiry for others to pursue further. My concerns revolve around the question that despite being a chief priest of a new mode of Nationalist combat, known as New Nationalism or Democratic Nationalism, why did he disappear from the Nationalist scene? Was it an offshoot of his disenchantment with the Nationalist struggle as such, or with those who spearheaded the campaign or was it a response to his spiritual quest? No categorical answer is possible. It is also not plausible to suggest that he completely delinked from the Nationalist counter-offensive as his letters to many of his friends in India show that he continued to nurture interests in the struggle for freedom. In fact, his long statement on the occasion of India’s independence on 15 August 1947 is illustrative here; not only did he elaborate on the politico-ideological objectives of the independent state of India but he also bestowed the responsibility on her to lead the world with reference to the ideas that were ingrained in her rich intellectual heritage. So, the emotional chord with Indian nationalism was hardly severed in so far as Aurobindo was concerned. As is obvious, book writing is a collaborative project since the author depends on input from various sources while meaningfully formulating their ideas. Hence, many individuals are involved in various capacities. First, I owe a great deal to Dr Nimai Saha, the VisvaBharati Librarian who was always ‘one phone call away’ when I needed books, essays and other printed texts. The members of the Secretariat of the Vice Chancellor, Visva-Bharati, extended help which was sought to make my task easier. I should not forget Gopal who was never tired in response to my requests for several cups of tea and coffee which also boosted my energy when I was exhausted. Sri Debashis Dutta, the Confidential Secretary of the Vice Chancellor, is a good manager in efficiently running the office as per the rules and regulations—he never allows files to pile up in the office for final clearance. I express my gratitude to him for being so sincere in discharging his assigned responsibilities. Those who work in my residential bungalow, Purbita, remain steadfastly committed to what they are supposed to do to make my stay away from my family most comfortable. I put on record my appreciation for them. I should not forget to mention the contribution of my colleagues and students who, by sincerely being involved in the regular cultural-spiritual programmes in the Ashram, sustained my energy in an environment which was now and then vitiated by vested interests. They deserve to be thanked who, while hitting me below the

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belt, continuously helped me emerge much stronger than I was when I joined Visva-Bharati in late 2018. My colleagues in Delhi, Visva-Bharati and other campuses across the globe also assisted in improving the text and the nature of the argument by providing intellectual input. I am very lucky in the sense that I have as many foes as friends in various parts of the world who always stood by me when I had to grapple with crises of many dimensions. I acknowledge their support because, without them, it would not have been possible for me to isolate completely from those evil forces who were determined not only to emotionally rattle but also decimate me, if possible. I am also fortunate to be in Visva-Bharati at the fag end of my academic career and life since I have seen both the ugly and good side of human beings; I also confronted situations which developed all of a sudden because of somebody else’s fault, deliberate or otherwise. Santiniketan is a peculiar place where even those who are aware that they deviate from the core values of Tagore’s socio-economic and politico-cultural priorities, abortively defend their anti-Visva-Bharati activities, which appeared to me at the outset of my stint here as ‘hypocritical’; later, of course, I realised that this was the pattern since one’s selfish interests have always been privileged. Even the so-called elites among the Bengalis are not free from these vices. Finally, I owe a great deal to my family who, by continuously providing emotional nourishment, helped sustain my creativity. My strict editor, our daughter Mamma, remains a source of inspiration— not only because she is conscientious but also because of her dedication to academia. Our son Pablo contributes to my endeavour differently by discharging his role as ‘a baby-man’ in the house in my absence. His being righteous today seems to be a little puzzling, although, by being so, he also questions the commonly held belief that human beings are not moulded uniformly. The contributions of my students on campuses across the globe where I taught during my long teaching career are of tremendous significance. They are, for me, the beacons of light even in circumstances when I was not confident enough to start a new academic project. With their penetrating questions on themes of my choice, they unknowingly inspired me to embark on projects which did not appear to be doable before they intervened. I owe a great deal to them. If I succeed in sustaining their inquisitive zeal through my writings and classroom teaching, I will have received the greatest reward a teacher or a researcher could think of. September 2022 Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan India

INTRODUCTION I History is remembrance; it is a prism to see the past differently since one’s contextual inputs act decisively in shaping one’s perception. It is thus a platform enabling the present to evaluate the past. A caveat is necessary here since there are socio-cultural and intellectual imprints of the past in the present which, of course, does not justify arguing that the latter is nothing but a replica of the former. Given this conceptual assumption, it can be thus fairly argued that the present is both a continuity and a break with the past; in view of the dialectical interconnection between the past and the present, history is perhaps the best mirror available to humanity to understand the twists and turns in its journey. Linked with this world view is also the claim that history is not just an account of the past but also provides tools to analyse the bygone socio-economic and politico-cultural processes. Is history then an elaboration of how human history progresses? The answer is both yes and no: yes, because it is what happened in the yesteryears; no, because history is nothing but a continuity of the unfolding of humanity in multifarious ways. What is emphasised here is the ideational transformation that history witnesses, mapping out how one’s worldly existence is conceptualised differently in different phases of humanity. So, change is inevitable. Whether it is for good or worse does not seem to be pertinent here since it depends on who is the arbiter in this respect; what is critical is to capture the processes leading to the reconceptualisation of humanity and the ideational priorities which gain precedence at a particular juncture of human history. Illustrative here is how humanity changed the consolidation of industrial civilisation that radically altered human perception about oneself and the criteria of happiness. There is no denying that with industrialisation, European powers became powerful as they had access to technology which helped them establish their hegemony in Africa and Asia. So, colonialism, which was a product of a particular phase of human history, was, at the same time, a source of enjoyment and distress depending upon which part of the globe one was located. Was this unavoidable? Again, the answer could be both, yes and no: yes, since industrialisation was the outcome of concerted human effort; and, no, as industrialisation led to greed and arrogance in those who benefited from industrial growth, and it was instinctive of human beings to express themselves accordingly. 1

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Industrialisation was thus a double-edged sword: it instantaneously made the European colonisers stinking rich and the colonised poor; in order to break the colonial shackles, colonialism also contributed to the rise and consolidation of a powerful oppositional voice of the colonised. In clear terms, the brutal force with which the colonisers derived their apparently invincible hegemony provoked opposition in the colonies and laid the foundation of many libertarian ideational theories and ideas and also the reiteration of conceptual priorities defending humanity as a well-knit collectivity. One is thus persuaded to argue that colonialism was also the driving force behind many striking changes in human history. Not only did it expose the ugly faces of a section of humanity but it also registered strong counter-attacks on those forces seeking to gain at others’ cost. Considering this, will it be fair to argue that the industrial phase of human history was unique? If judged at a micro level, there are reasons to believe such an assumption although, at the micro level, the argument does not appear to be as meaningful as it is claimed. There are two reasons: on the one hand, a careful perusal of the past reveals that a section of humanity always resorted to brutality and coercion to control the weak for their partisan gains; history also reveals that there were many who sailed against the current as they were ideologically inspired to contain the strong even by making a supreme sacrifice. So, in the wider sense, industrialisation was just a phase when the industrially well-endowed European nations reverberated a trend which did not seem to be unusual as the past convincingly proves. The battle between the exploiters and the exploited can thus be said to have germinated many challenging ideational views which would not have gained momentum had the situation been otherwise. To explain the conceptual claim in the widely prevalent dictum of the Bhagavad Gita, emphasising the process of how a statement and challenging counterstatement contributes to knowledge. The Upanishads also emphasised India’s argumentative tradition, in which the widely prevalent Hegelian dictum of dialectical trio emphasised how a thesis is transformed into a synthesis via the articulation of an antithesis. The purpose of a rather long signposting paragraph is twofold: first, the aim here is to contextualise the growth of revolutionary nationalism in India which was counter to the popularly known Moderate Nationalist approach; second, as the root of nationalism was, inter alia, located in colonialism, what is required to be addressed is whether the former owed to the ideational priorities that also justified the latter. One is reminded of the speech that Edmund Burke delivered in the later 18th century in the House of Lords to defend his argument for the East India Company ruler in India, Warren Hastings (1732–1818) when he argued strongly for Britain’s colonial expansion as a means to

Introduction

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civilise barbarian Indians. Burke’s arguments were quoted profusely to insist that colonialism was an appropriate device to take Indians out of darkness. Not only did the British elites support colonisation but many leading Indians endorsed the viewpoints that the rulers represented to expand their sphere of influence. Rammohun Roy (1773–1833) was a good example who welcomed the British as it was considered to be a panacea for India in view of the fact that British civilisation was based on Enlightenment philosophy emphasising concern, care and compassion for humanity. It did not escape the notice of Rabindranath Tagore (1869–1941) who, in order to ascertain the importance of Rammohun as a harbinger of a new world, mentioned that Rammohun Roy appeared in India at a time when the country, in its blindness extending over the centuries, come [sic] to regard a life of vegetation as holiness.… [He] was the foremost of those brave spirits who have stood up, in the face of hostility and misunderstanding, and who, in all their varied activities have eloquently welcomed the Spirit of the New Age. He was the herald of India, the very first to bear her offerings to the outside world, and accept for himself and his country the best that the world could offer.1

For Tagore, Rammohun was a source of inspiration because of his endeavour to create a space for interactional thinking at a time when rational thinking was hardly encouraged, perhaps due to the hegemonic grip of the archaic mode of conceptualising human beings and their existence. He was unequivocally hailed by the poet as ‘the great pathmaker of this century [19th century] who has removed ponderous obstacles that impeded our progress at every step, and initiated us into the present era of world-wide cooperation of humanity’.2 Rammohun was intellectually loyal to the ideational preferences of those who defended colonialism as a progressive step. This is one side of his intellectual persona. Equally important was the other side, which Tagore articulated by saying that he ‘paved the path for the assertion of India’s innermost truth of being, her belief in the equality of man in the love of the Supreme Person who ever dwells in the hearts of all men and unites us in the bond of welfare’ (667–668). Reiterating the Upanishadic belief, Rammohun spread the message to the world as a whole. It is therefore to argue that he was the bridge between the East and West. Sensitive to the views supportive of humanity, he also initiated a new trend in human history, emphasising that the so-called weak (in the contemporary lexicon) had also something substantial to offer to humanity. Disregarding the socio-economic and politico-cultural forces opposed to his mission, he hardly restrained himself from pursuing what he espoused as his politico-ideological

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goals. He conceptualised his role at two levels: at one level, by welcoming the Enlightenment values, he created a space for ideas with roots in the Western discourses since they were favourably disposed towards humanity; at another level, by championing indigenous discourses which also upheld humanistic values, he argued strongly that the East had also contributed to the consolidation of humanity. Hence Tagore argued that Rammohun was the only person in his time, in the whole world of man, to realize completely the significance of the modern age. He knew that the ideal of human civilization does not lie in the isolation of independence, but in the brotherhood of interdependence of individuals as well as of nations in all spheres of thought and activity. He applied this principle of humanity with his extraordinary depth of scholarship and natural gift of intuition, to social, literary and religious affairs, never acknowledging limitations of circumstance. (668)

His individual effort brought some of the Indians closer to him which allowed his ideas to prosper in the days to come. The core point here is that Rammohun set the ball rolling with his effort at a juncture of India’s history when the task was not easy to accomplish. Nonetheless, by being steadfast to his politico-ideological commitment to humanity, he stood out in adverse circumstances which Tagore captured brilliantly by saying that Rammohun suffered martyrdom in his time, and paid the price for his greatness. But out of his sufferings, his power of transmuting them to carry on further beneficent activities for the good of humanity, the modern age has gained an undying urge of life. If we fail him again in this day of our nation-building, if we do not observe perfect equity of human relationship offering uncompromising fight to all forms and conventions, however ancient they may be in usage, which separate man and man, we shall be pitiful in our failure, and shamed for ever in the history of man. Our futility will be in the measure of the greatness of Rammohun Roy. (668–669)

There are three points that deserve attention: first, while sailing against the current, Rammohun paid a heavy price which reveals that the prevalent socio-cultural norms supported by the existing politicoideological dispensation were strong enough to muzzle the voice opposed to altering the so-called systemic constraints. The reasons were not difficult to locate. As the socio-cultural practices were protective of vested interests, it was natural that those who were likely to be deprived

Introduction

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of these customary benefits opposed Rammohun. Second, Rammohun’s loyalism might have caused consternation since he championed colonial rule in India in contrast to the erstwhile feudal governance. In his perception, so long as these socio-cultural discriminatory practices were allowed to continue, human liberation remained elusive. Hence, he raised the cudgels against these archaic designs of social engineering. Finally, by reiterating the ideals that Rammohun upheld, Tagore also reminded the Nationalists of the critical role that Rammohun played in pursuing his politico-ideological goals in circumstances which were not exactly in his favour. In a situation which was clearly antagonistic, the fact that Rammohun fought against those who determinedly endeavoured to sustain their exclusive benefits was a source of inspiration for those articulating a powerful response by creatively blending the intellectual resources drawn from Western and indigenous discourses.

II India’s political freedom in 1947 was the culmination of a series of struggles against the British. Prominent among them was the one that began with the formation of the Indian National Congress in 1885 at the behest of a retired British civil servant, A.O. Hume. Being baptised in constitutional liberalism of the British variety, the early Congress Nationalists, Umesh Chandra Bonnerjee, Dadabhai Naoroji, M.G. Ranade and Surendranath Banerjea among others, were persuaded to believe that constitutional means were most effective in securing their politico-ideological goals. Thus, it was not surprising that, for them, petition, prayer and protest constituted the fundamental pillars of their anti-British campaign. Characterised as Moderates, they discharged their Nationalist role in annual meetings by adopting resolutions which, they thought, were complementary to India’s progress by being integral to the empire. Politico-ideologically, they were Loyalists and thus upheld constitutional liberalism as perhaps the most effective means of human emancipation. Over time, they realised that colonialism per se impeded human development since it drew sustenance from exploiting the colonised. Published in 1901, Dadabhai Naoroji’s UnBritish Rule in India was one of the first expositions of how British rule led to India’s pauperisation. R.C. Dutt, another liberal, had also shown how British colonialism contributed to India’s economic decay. Along with the disillusionment of some of the Moderates, there were segments of the Nationalists within the National Congress who also questioned the Moderate means as inadequate to fulfil their politico-ideological preferences. The most vocal sections among the Nationalists not only

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challenged them ideologically but also created a new template for the Nationalist struggle, urging their followers to adopt means to adversely affect British economic interests and political hegemony in India. LalBal-Pal (Lala Lajpat Rai, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Bipin Chandra Pal) stood out as a prominent voice in this regard. By declaring that Swaraj was our birthright, Tilak was one of the first New Nationalists who couched the Nationalist language completely differently. Although Tilak transformed the Nationalist vocabulary, it was his relatively younger colleague, Aurobindo Ghose, who conceptually evolved the notion of New Nationalism or Democratic Nationalism in the context of the decline of the Moderates and their rise as critical to Indian nationalism. According to Ghose, New Nationalism was new, given its novel vocabulary in expressing the Nationalist priority of those who vehemently opposed the Moderates—the Loyalists par excellence. New Nationalists were also democratic since they created new constituencies of Nationalist struggle in many parts of the country which also included new social segments beyond those which remained dominant in the National Congress so far. As the available evidence demonstrates, Indian nationalism underwent a sea change with the rise and consolidation of the New Nationalists. Being one of the proponents of a new Nationalist voice, Aurobindo evolved a new language of the Nationalist agitation which entailed both the removal of the British and the development of a new ideational vision seeking to inspire the youth to participate in the struggle against the colonisers. The era was one of regeneration and reawakening for the colonised in response to the unfolding of ideas challenging uncritical submission to the ruling authority. It was most explicitly stated by Aurobindo who, in Karmayogin, thus attributed the emotional decadence of the ruled in view of their indifference which was inculcated presumably to curry favour from the rulers. According to him, the nineteenth century in India was imitative, self-forgetful, artificial. It aimed at a successful reproduction of Europe in India, forgetting the deep saying of the Gita – ‘Better the law of one’s own being though it be badly done than an alien dharma well-followed; death in one’s dharma is better, it is a dangerous thing to follow the law of another’s nature’. [Hence, he concluded that] … for death in one’s own dharma brings new birth, success in an alien path only successful suicide.3

As a devout believer of ideas the Gita articulated to inspire Arjun to fight for justice, Aurobindo believed only by being sincere to the cause of the nation, would the Nationalists be properly guided by

Introduction

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the Almighty to follow a right path to attain the espoused goal. Here, dharma did not imply compliance to the rituals of a religion, but commitment to serve the nation being enslaved by a foreign power. The aim was to bring together those who were not ready to make supreme sacrifice but also carry forward the message to the people at large; only then, the Nationalists rose to become invincible in the struggle against oppression and injustice meted out to the Indians by the British rulers. With the outbreak of the Swadeshi campaign (1905–1908), Aurobindo was convinced that those pursuing the Nationalist campaign were strong enough to successfully combat the perpetrators of exploitation. Hence, he argued that the outburst of anti-European feeling which followed on the [first] Partition [of Bengal] gave the required opportunity. Anger, vindictiveness, and antipathy are not in themselves laudable feelings, but God uses them for His purposes and brings good out of evil.… The anger against Europeans, the vengeful turning upon their commerce and its productions, the antipathy to everything associated with them engendered a powerful stream of tendency turning away from the immediate Anglicised past, and the spirit which had already declared itself in our religious life entered in by this broad doorway into politics, and substituted a positive yearning towards the national past, a still more mighty and dynamic yearning towards a truly national future. (63)

Implicit here are two interrelated arguments Aurobindo offered to comprehend the changing texture of Indian nationalism following the successful mobilisation by the Congress Nationalists for revocation of the 1905 first partition which was politically engineered by the British rulers in their favour. First, it was evident that the Nationalists were strong enough to force the rulers to rescind the partition despite having had access to the instruments of coercion and the unflinching support of the Loyalists. Hence, Aurobindo was persuaded to believe that only an organised attack by the Nationalists on the rulers would make it easier for them to accomplish the goal. Further to this belief, he also felt that nationalism flourished once the cause was genuine and respected by the participants regardless of the consequences. Second, unlike the Moderates, he boldly defended the claim that the ancient sources of wisdom, the Vedas and the Upanishads, remained important inspirational inputs since they were part and parcel of Indian socio-cultural identity. In other words, by virtue of being Indian, everybody internalised the ideas and values which these ancient texts transmitted over centuries. Such an internalisation was instinctive of

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being Indians, held Aurobindo. Here, Vedas and Upanishads, were, to him, an embodiment of ideas empowering those fighting to liberate the exploited and the disprivileged even in adverse circumstances. Aurobindo’s idea of New Nationalism is not exclusive although since he emphasised that the phenomenon also draws on Vedas and Upanishads (which are essentially sources of Hinduism or Hindus draw their intellectual sustenance from these two ancient texts), one may end up claiming so. By emphatically arguing to the contrary while sternly criticising those who were associated with the Hindu Sabha, including his compatriot, Lala Lajpat Rai (1865–1928), he insisted that Hindu nationalism was not ‘a possibility under modern conditions’ (304). It was a meaningful conceptualisation during the medieval period when ‘the object of national revival was to overthrow a Mohomedan domination which, once tending to Indian unity and toleration, had become oppressive and disruptive’ (304). Given the changed environment, it was wrong to characterise the Congress-led anti-British campaign as Hindu nationalism. A priest of communal amity, Aurobindo thus argued that ‘the country, the swadesh, which must be the base and fundament of our nationality is India, a country where Mohamedan and Hindu live intermingled and side by side’ (305). Notwithstanding being different in religious inclinations, Hindus and Muslims had lived together separately for ages which accounted for why it was conceptually meaningful to dismiss Hindu nationalism as a tenable category to explain the battle against colonialism. Nonetheless, Aurobindo added a caveat to qualify his argument. According to him, the formation of the Muslim League in 1906 led to the consolidation of a mindset separating Hindus from Muslims which impeded the rise of India as a nation comprising two major religious communities as integrally connected. While sharply making this point, he thus argued that insisting on their ‘separateness … and also refusal to regard themselves as Indians first and Mohomedans afterwards [created and also consolidated] … a fissure between the Hindus and the Mohomedans’ (305). A cursory probing of this statement may lead one to characterise Aurobindo as a proponent of Hindu nationalism since he held the view that because the Mohomedans were determined to retain their exclusive socio-cultural identity, they could hardly be Indians. The argument is hardly defensible because Aurobindo, in order to build a united India, also insisted that despite resistance by the Muslims, Hindus ‘must win swaraj for [themselves] and the Mohomedans [because] India remains a country of many communities with distinct social and cultural characteristics’ (305). Implicit here are two critical points to comprehend his idea of New Nationalism: on the one hand, he, by putting forward the view that Hindus and

Introduction

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Muslims needed to be together for India as a collectivity, expressed the preferences which gradually gained momentum in the Indian freedom struggle; on the other hand, being aware that intellectual affinity was most critical for cementing an intra-community bond led him to emphasise the importance of Vedas and Upanishads. He felt that the visible indifference of Hindus to these sources of wisdom did not allow them to rise to being a well-knit community. It was a source of weakness which ought to be addressed meaningfully. Hence, he suggested that ‘we will sacrifice no ancient form to an unreasoning love of change, we will keep none which the national spirit desires to replace by one that is a still better and truer expression of the undying soul of the nation’ (66). One is now persuaded to argue that Aurobindo was neither a Hindu Nationalist nor a conservative thinker who clung to ideas which were not nationalistically inclined. His idea of nationalism was not as restrictive as that of the Europeans because he was aware that India was one, presumably because of uniform civilisational roots despite being disparate socio-culturally. He was not a conservative thinker since he was agreeable to the acceptance of ideas and models which, he felt, were adequate to safeguard the soul of the nation. Core to his idea of New Nationalism was his concern for protecting India’s distinctive identity comprising inputs from many socio-religious and socio-cultural sources. Contrary to the Moderates’ conceptualisation of nationalism, New Nationalism was, according to Aurobindo, a negation of the old bourgeois ideals of the nineteenth century. It is an attempt to relegate the dominant bourgeois in us to his old obscurity, to transform the bourgeois into Samurai and through him to extend the working of the Samurai spirit to the whole nation. … It is [therefore] an attempt to create a new nation in India by reviving in spirit and action ancient Indian character, the strong, great, and lofty spirit of old Aryabarta, and setting it to use and mould the methods and materials of modernity for the freedom, greatness, and wellbeing of a historic and immortal people.4

The above definition of New Nationalism is an explicit articulation of the phenomenon as it also identifies three distinguishing features: first, New Nationalism was an infusion of new ideals with newer energies, following the example of the courageous Samurai who built a new Japan by creatively amalgamating modernity with Japanese traditional wisdom. Modernity provided them with modern means which contributed to the rise and hegemony of the Western powers over the rest of the world; the Samurai was a design which connected the Japanese with their glorious past. The blending of the scientific

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knowledge of the West with that of Japanese prowess generated a new zeal among them which was an important source of their confidence and capability to combat even the West. Here, Aurobindo had in mind the Japanese victory in the 1904 Russo-Japanese War when the Japanese army defeated the Russians which startled the Western powers.5 It was possible, argued Aurobindo, because the Japanese combined the acquired knowledge from the West with what was distinctive of being Japanese as a nation endowed with indigenous wisdom. Second, being grounded in India’s rich philosophical– intellectual traditions, Aurobindo was well aware that they needed to be highlighted to create an acceptable template of thinking to bring people together regardless of the socio-cultural chasm. He thus had two clearly defined politico-ideological objectives, like his Western counterparts who demonstrated the importance of ideological affinity as being critical to successful revolutions. Being an admirer of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who by questioning the hegemonic monarchy in France laid the foundation for the 1789 French Revolution, Aurobindo not only realised the significance of a mindset opposed to exploitation but also felt the need to spread the values in its favour across social strata and geographical boundaries. The other objective was also to highlight the idea of India which the erstwhile Moderates failed by being confined to the metropolitan cities of Calcutta and Bombay; they did not seem to have bothered to consider the majority of Indians who remained socio-politically peripheral in their concept of India. Finally, Aurobindo’s idea of New or Democratic Nationalism was conceptually an antithesis to the Moderate construction of nationalism which was also considered ‘mendicant nationalism’ since the Nationalist voice was articulated in a language which was neither hard-hitting nor conciliatory. With the prominence of Lal-Bal-Pal, a new Nationalist narrative gained precedence, resulting in the decline of what the Moderates upheld since the campaign for political rights for the subject nation began. Aurobindo’s ideas were more than a continuity in two ways: on the one hand, by rejecting the Moderates’ preference of being ‘mendicants’, he evolved a politico-ideological discourse which was both indigenous and exogenous. More specifically, his appreciation for the Japanese Samurai tradition reveals that his approach to nationalism was also Asia-centric unlike his predecessors, namely, the Moderates. His texts in Karmayogin and Bande Mataram epitomise, on the other hand, an endeavour which was not only novel but also inspirational as the changed nature of Indian nationalism under the stewardship of the New Nationalists demonstrated. A new era was ushered in which finally culminated in the Gandhian

Introduction

11

phase of Indian nationalism when the Nationalist movement spread, cutting across socio-cultural boundaries in India. New or Democratic Nationalism was a voice which evolved out of complex historical processes which Aurobindo captured in his myriad writings long before he emerged in a completely different persona in French-occupied Pondicherry. The period between 1893 and 1910 provides powerful inputs to comprehend the transforming Nationalist scene, both in terms of politico-ideological complexion and the nature of leadership. It is, however, historically untenable to suggest that the Nationalist transformation was visible only with the emergence of LalBal-Pal and his disciples since one also notices ‘dissenting voices’ among the Moderates. For instance, Dadabhai Naoroji, one of the prominent Moderates, challenged the British suzerainty in his book Poverty and Un-British Rule in India (1901) by persuasively arguing that foreign rule was responsible for India’s poverty which, also by implication, suggests that the British authority was not as caring as it was shown to be by his Moderate colleagues. The same argument was unambiguously made earlier by another prominent Moderate thinker, R.C. Dutt, who in The Economic History of India (1893), broached the issue by providing a statistical analysis of how India was being exploited by the British rulers for their partisan gains. The task was made easier for Aurobindo since he had access to the inputs provided by his predecessors. What was unique in him was not only an articulation of a definite politicoideological priority but also a specific method to attain the goal. New Nationalism was a contextually innovative conceptualisation which was informed by his erstwhile colleagues as well. Conceptually, it can also be said to have initiated a new era in the Nationalist campaign which was neither ‘mendicant’ nor exactly ‘extremist’ but a clearly novel design which also had elements of the Gandhian approach to combat imposed British authority.

III A monograph on Aurobindo’s socio-political ideas is beset with an obvious difficulty since he represented two completely different modes of thinking. Till 1907, he was a Nationalist par excellence in the sense that his primary goal was to wrest freedom even by deploying force. One of the prominent Nationalist figures in the pre-Gandhian phase of Indian nationalism, he was also one of the leading spokespersons of revolutionary nationalism that evolved as a counter to the Moderate approach to the Nationalist struggle in India. With his preference for realising the Supreme Person, he left British India and built his ashram

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in French-occupied Pondicherry. Instead of focusing on this phase of Aurobindo’s life away from Nationalist activities, our purpose is to understand his socio-political ideas that flourished when he was organically linked with revolutionary nationalism which was officially reduced to ‘terrorism’ and ‘Extremism’. It does not seem unusual for the rulers to christen the efforts of the revolutionaries as terroristic or extremist since they deviated from the modes of Nationalist protest that developed before the 1907 Surat Congress when a formal division between the Moderates and Revolutionary Nationalists took place. In his speech in the 1907 Pabna session of the Bengal Provincial Congress, Rabindranath attributed the characterisation of a section of Nationalists as extremists or terrorists to the British design of dividing the Nationalist unity. Not only was it an artificial division engineered by the rulers but also their motivated endeavour. According to Tagore, the birth of the so-called Extremists in the Congress was just ‘a symptom of the failure of the Moderates to address the genuine nationalist concerns and also manifested a violent reaction to the policies deliberately devised by the colonisers to put the subjects in further difficulties’.6 One of the important architects of revolutionary nationalism was Aurobindo Ghose, who, along with Lala Lajpat Rai, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Bipin Chandra Pal, popularly known as LalBal-Pal, carved a new narrative of Indian nationalism. Contrary to the constitutional protest that the Moderates developed, the Revolutionary Nationalists did not seem to have been restrained in resorting to methods which were not derivative of liberal constitutionalism. What is striking is to understand the ascetic Aurobindo who also appreciated the Revolutionary Nationalist method to wrest political freedom. There is hardly a conclusive answer to the radical transformation of Aurobindo’s mindset involved in the quest for divinity in circumstances when humanity was being regularly butchered in colonial India. Probably, it was possible for Aurobindo to articulate life differently as his priorities underwent a sea change once he left India in 1907. It was aptly captured by Tagore who had an opportunity to see him in two diametrically opposite personae. On both occasions, his assessment was the same since he ‘saluted the saint and also his earlier heroic youth … when he took many unusual steps to liberate his motherland’ (Tagore 2008: 412). The idea was clear in the sense that the commitment that the saint Aurobindo had to his politicoideological priorities had the same depth which the revolutionary Aurobindo exemplified. So, he was the epitome of the qualities that one should have to pursue one’s goals and objectives. From this point of view, Aurobindo cannot be reduced to being a historical figure but was a wave of thinking that metamorphosed in response to his inner

Introduction

13

urges and contextual peculiarities. He represented, in other words, a quest which he fulfilled in two different ways: so long as he was involved in the Revolutionary Nationalist activities, he left no stone unturned to execute his plan of action, tuned to the goal; once he left for French Pondicherry, he radically changed his priorities by concentrating on issues linked with his search for the Supreme Being. In order to understand how the contextual influences shaped Aurobindo’s politico-ideological priorities, one is invariably drawn to the rapidly changing political complexion of Bengal, especially following the separation of the Revolutionary Nationalists from their Moderate counterparts in the 1907 Surat Congress. Most of the young supporters of the Congress resented the so-called mendicant politics of the Moderates, and they felt that it was not the right means to combat the brutal British rule in India. Hence, Lajpat Rai declared that ‘our struggle for freedom must be carried on in India.… The tree of the nation calls for blood, world history was written in letters of blood [and] let us crown our national movement with martyrdom.’7 Given such an ideological belief, it was obvious that the Revolutionary Nationalists had reasons to differ radically from those who believed in the liberal-constitutional method as the only device of protest. Daniel Argov very succinctly described the differences between the Moderates and their opponents by underlining that the Moderates solicited constitutional reforms which were transformative while the ‘Extremists regarded the British government … as a system of despotic alien rule; the Moderates aspired to attain self-government with the Empire [and their counterparts] … regarded the British rule as harmful to the Indians [and] it needed to be thrown away … by deploying means other than those resorted to by the Moderates’.8 Surprisingly, the Moderates, who always upheld the constitutional means of prayer, petition and protest, were also subject to criticism by the English rulers, including the then Governor-General of Bengal, Curzon, who, by announcing the administrative division of Bengal between the Hindu-preponderant West Bengal and the Muslimdominated East Bengal, advised the youth of Bengal that the Moderate means did not seem to be adequate to fulfil their goals. It was evident when he exhorted them to equip [themselves] with a genuine and manly love for your own people … not the perfervid nationalism of the platform, but the selfsacrificing ardour of the true patriot.… Learn that the true salvation of India will not come from without but must be created within. It will not be given by enactments of the British parliament or of any parliament all. It will not be won by political controversy and most certainly it will not be won by rhetorics.9

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Explicit here is Curzon’s condemnation of Moderate methods which were only articulated in verbose statements and lacked specific plans for realising the politico-ideological goal. It was a little surprising that the ruler ran out of ideas for the youth to try a new method; otherwise, their endeavour was in vain, warned Curzon. Nonetheless, the Moderate leadership hardly had any inkling of methods other than peaceful constitutional challenges against foreign rule. While being appreciative of how they planned to combat the alien governance, Surendranath Banerjea thus emphasised that ‘we religiously avoided unconstitutional methods and wild hysterics that breed and stimulate them. Even when,’ he further added, ‘attacked by the police, we did not retaliate; we shouted Bande Mataram at each stroke of the police lathi and then appealed to the constituted courts of law for redress.’10 Reiterating their steadfast commitment to constitutional means, Banerjea stuck to the means despite being aware of the resentment of a sizeable section of the youth who were baptised by the radical leaders in a completely different mode of anti-British resistance. The result was the split within the Congress in its 1907 annual session in Surat. It is true, as the available research shows, that the Revolutionary Nationalists succeeded in galvanising the youth for the Nationalist cause which was not so visible so long as the Moderates reigned supreme in the campaign. The Moderate resistance became an annual affair in the sense that the Congress leadership prepared many resolutions containing their grievances which they submitted to the political authority for effective redressal. In contrast, the Revolutionary Nationalists participated in the campaign by being involved in activities which adversely affected the rulers. For instance, the boycott of foreign goods was guided by the consideration of harming the economic prospects of the British and other foreign merchants because of the reduction of the sales of their products in India. The boycott strategy did not work to the extent it was expected as the home-made products were expensive and hence not affordable for most people. It also had an adverse impact on the Nationalist campaign because by forcing the poor to buy the indigenous products, the Revolutionary Nationalists alienated them, especially the poor Muslims, which was a watershed in Indian nationalism with the consolidation of identity politics. As is well known, the Hindu–Muslim division was institutionalised with the foundation of the Muslim League in 1906. Besides being handicapped by the formation of the League, the Revolutionary Nationalists also failed to spread the Nationalist campaign beyond Calcutta and mofussil towns; they never thought of involving the peasants in the Nationalist struggle. As a result, their campaign was confined to the educated middle classes and was one of the major reasons for it to remain restricted to a microscopic minority.

Introduction

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‘The real Achilles’ heel’,11 to borrow the expression of Sumit Sarkar, of the movement that evolved at the behest of Revolutionary Nationalists was their failure to mobilise the masses for the Nationalist cause. Aurobindo was politico-ideologically baptised during the first few years of the 20th century when the battle between the Moderates and their opponents in the National Congress was fought tooth and nail. Supportive of the Revolutionary Nationalist endeavour, he also realised that constitutional means were not adequate to attain their espoused goal. It was a phase of an experiment in the Nationalist struggle which was nearly conclusively resolved with the appearance of Gandhi as a pan-Indian leader. One of the most realistic descriptions was available in Rabindranath Tagore’s novel Ghare Baire (1916), which was a reiteration of the debate that figured prominently in Bengal once the Moderates lost their grip in the anti-British campaign as their methods were entirely rejected. There were three protagonists in the novel—Nikhilesh, his wife Bimala and his friend Sandip who led the Swadeshi campaign (1905–1908) as a protest against the dismemberment of Bengal in 1905 by a British decree. As a staunch believer in Revolutionary Nationalist design, Sandip did not bother to pay attention to the consequences of the application of force on the hapless villagers once they challenged the decision to boycott foreign clothes. Given his humanistic concerns (or paternalistic inclination) for the subjects in his zamindari estates, who were mostly poor Muslims, Nikhilesh tirelessly endeavoured to dissuade Sandip from insisting on such a debilitating step since it would adversely affect them. In consequence, it was likely that they deserted the Congress and were most likely to be in the grip of the Muslim leadership that rose to prominence by expressing its desire to take care of their socio-economic interests. The Swadeshi campaign, despite being a politically meaningful Nationalist design, can thus be said to have generated an unbridgeable gulf between the Hindus and Muslims. Sandip paid no heed to the advice of Nikhilesh as he claimed himself to have had the expertise to carry forward a mass campaign. Impressed by Sandip’s charisma, Bimala drew closer to Sandip and became his strong supporter even in opposition to her husband, Nikhilesh. Only based on inputs from one of the cohorts of Sandip, Amulya, did she realise that Sandip was a hypocrite as there were discrepancies between what he said in public and what he did in private. But it was too late for her because, by that time, the situation became worse, and Nikhilesh had to pay a heavy price which was a source of lifelong regret for Bimala. In short, Ghare Baire was an articulation of inner debates and mutual criticism between, on the one hand, Nikhilesh who stood for ‘constructive-rural welfare work for the poor and exploited people’, and, on the other, Sandip whose ‘extremist rhetoric exalts the country as a goddess and

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who [was] indifferent to the fate of the poor and the Muslim’ (Sarkar 2011: xxiii). The Swadeshi Movement therefore represented not just an ideational battle but also a moment when the nature of politics underwent changes. Explicit here are two arguments: on the one hand, the campaign against the first partition of Bengal exposed the limitations of almost dead Moderate nationalism and also the rising revolutionary nationalism because it failed to comprehend the growing importance of the socio-economically peripheral groups. In Bengal, the scene was further complicated since the majority of the peasants, especially in East Bengal, were Muslims and the majority of the landlords were Hindus. So, the communal schism was not merely a division in terms of one’s religious identity but also a difference in terms of class. The second argument, identifying the inability of the Nationalist leadership to link socio-cultural prejudices with the strength of the Nationalist campaign, highlights the limitations of elite politics in a situation when it dawned on the poor that they were not only exploited by the foreign rulers but also by landlords and their supporters by depriving them of what was due to them. Tagore’s novel, Char Adhyay (1934), had the same politico-ideological message in the sense that not only did it expose the inherent weaknesses of revolutionary nationalism, which many dialogical interactions between Atin and Ela demonstrate, but it was also a reiteration of Tagore’s own conviction for universal humanism. In other words, as the poet believed that humanity was prior to any of the ideological beliefs, he always raised his voice against forces seeking to undermine human values. Atin’s refusal to acknowledge Ela’s love for him was thus unacceptable to the poet because it was illustrative of how one’s blind commitment to an ideological priority prevented one, in this case, Atin, from appreciating finer human sentiments. Char Adhyay was thus Tagore’s fierce critique of revolutionary nationalism which, despite having led many to make the supreme sacrifice for the cause, failed to create a solid base for the Nationalist campaign to strike firm roots in the country. The purpose of a rather brief elaboration of the context in which Aurobindo embarked on his Nationalist mission was to contextualise his ideas, which evolved as a critique of the Moderate modes of fighting the Nationalist battle in collaboration with his like-minded colleagues. A rationalist to the core, Aurobindo was radically different from his Revolutionary Nationalist colleagues since he hardly appreciated their characterisation of the motherland as a goddess; it was, however, not a blanket rejection because he also admitted that the approach had its sense so long as it helped them mobilise support for the cause. So, he resorted to the analogy only in the instrumental sense, which further means that its application is well defined and also limited.

Introduction

17

One was therefore warned of the consequences of nationalism being conceptualised as a providential intervention; instead, it was a sentiment that needed to be inculcated. In other words, being reluctant to couch his argument in religious terms, Aurobindo represented a new wave of thinking which evolved a model that disregarded the mythical importance of religious idioms, presumably because they were impediments towards conceptualising nationalism as an outcome of rational thinking. Opposed to the growing importance of religion in the Nationalist bond since it became ‘hideous’,12 he helped build a new genre of thinking that did not completely reject the constitutional mode of resistance, presumably because it was rooted in a sustained rational quest on the part of many of the theorists who also questioned the hegemonic importance of religious beliefs in political responses. It was possible largely due to the efforts undertaken by many of the Bengali intellectuals who not only questioned the prevalent mode of archaic thinking but also replaced it with their innovative ideas which ushered in a new ideational era. The result was strikingly radical with the emergence of an ardent and imaginative race, long bound down in the fetters of a single tradition, had suddenly put into the hands the key to the new world thronged with the beautiful or profound creations of Art and Learning. From this meeting of a foreign Art and civilization with a temperament differing from the temperament which created them, there issued, as there usually does issue from such meetings, an original Art and an original civilization.13

Highlighting the socio-cultural churning that Bengal witnessed in the 19th century, Aurobindo laid out the tapestry of his thinking which owed a great deal to his predecessors. Just like Rabindranath Tagore, who always appreciated the importance of Rammohun’s urge to question superstitious beliefs, Bankim, who unshackled Bangla as a language of expression by taking it out from the hegemonic grip of the traditionalists, also emphasised the general concern for articulating an independent political voice. It was stated unambiguously when he commented that he was ‘born and brought up in an atmosphere of the confluence of three movements, all of which were revolutionary’.14 Reverberating the sense in which Tagore expressed his views, Aurobindo also spoke in the same language. As he said, Rammohun arose with a new religion by questioning the archaic beliefs in collaboration with his equally committed colleagues like Rajnarain Bose (1826–1899), Debendranath Tagore (1817–1905), Vidyasagar (1820–1891), Akshay Dutta, (1820–1886) Madhusudan Dutta (1824–1873) and Rajendralal

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Mitra (1822–1891), among others. Their role yielded results not merely because of their high calibre but because ‘around them arose a class of men who formed a sort of seed-bed for the creative geniuses, men of fine critical ability and appreciative temper, scholarly, accomplished, learned in music and the arts, men in short not only of culture, but of original culture’.15 Two points merit attention here: on the one hand, having established himself as a rationalist par excellence, Aurobindo became a part of the campaign that sought to carve a new narrative of human thinking in colonial India. It was not completely derivative since his predecessors paid adequate attention to the indigenous discourses which were not as dismissive as they were projected to be; the outcome was ‘an original culture’ which, on the other, conveyed that similar to Tagore, he also believed that it was the product of a sustained endeavour in which the like - minded compatriots participated. The argument was firmly made when he stated that by pushing aside the calm, docile, pious, dutiful Hindu ideal … with impatient energy, … the Bengali, released from the iron restraint which had lain like a frost on his warm blood and sensuous feeling, escaped joyously into the open air of almost Pagan freedom. The ancient Hindu cherished a profound sense of nothingness and vanity of life; the young Bengali felt vividly its joy, warmth and sensuousness. (95)

The argument is made at two levels: at a rather macro level, he was drawing our attention to the wider ramifications of the changes that Bengal underwent with the consolidation of rational-radical thinking. This was, as he mentioned above, a new mode of thinking which, by questioning the sterile Hindu thoughts, also prepared a platform for its sustenance perhaps due to the exposure of the limitations of what was considered to be axiomatic so far. At a micro level, Bengalis soon realised the constrictive nature of what they so far believed as enlightening. It had two complementary manifestations: on the one hand, not only did the urge consolidate a persuasive critique of the prevalent conceptually justified mores and values but it also helped them understand their ideational appeal in a specific context. Implicit here was an argument, on the other hand, with wider implications. Being critical of those imitative of the British, he, however, believed that it was perhaps a strategic device to survive in adverse circumstances, although he was not favourably inclined towards this. We must add a caveat here: like many of his contemporaries, he also tried to get into the coveted Indian Civil Service which also suggests that he did not appear to have been so antagonistic to the empire when he undertook

Introduction

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steps for fulfilling his goal. Nonetheless, later, Aurobindo, just like Tagore and Gandhi, saw the empire in a different light altogether. By being involved in many of the campaigns directed against the empire, he also followed the path that many of his predecessors undertook. The critique that Aurobindo in his new incarnation provided of the ‘servile imitators of the English [as] … they lack greatness and originality’ laid the foundation of a New Age based on new ideational priorities (96). The core of the argument is the claim that mere emulation did not make a nation great; what was required was innovative thinking which emerged, inter alia, out of the dialectical interaction with the prevalent socio-economic and politico-cultural reality; the intellectual heritage of a nation constituted an important cornerstone of creative thinking which reaffirms that Aurobindo was aware of the importance of India’s rich intellectual heritage in developing contextually relevant modes of thinking as a source of inspiration. Being alert to the critical role of the transcendental ideational values in human civilisation, Aurobindo thus evolved his own critique of Western civilisation and also constructed a mode of conceptualising the indigenous socio-economic and politicocultural realities which acted decisively in shaping a Nationalistic mindset. Like Tagore, he was also keen to draw upon those civilisational values which contributed to the betterment of humanity regardless of their origin. The Western discourses had a role in the consolidation of colonialism which was perhaps an aberration as the Enlightenment values of care, concern and empathy for humanity were also rooted in the former. Aurobindo provided a blended mode of thinking in which the importance of both the indigenous and Western discourses received equal importance which further confirms that he was universalist in his approach to humanism, like many of his contemporary Nationalists. It was evident in his characterisation of the ‘Makers of India’ who will succeed in achieving their goals not in collaboration with the politicians or … noisy social reformers but with a gracious Bengali who never clamoured for place or for power, but did his work in silence for love of his work, even as nature does, and just because he had no aim but to give out the best that was in him, was able to created a language, a literature and a nation.16

What prevails over the above statement was Aurobindo’s emphatic belief in success as it was complemented by the selfless devotion of the karmyayogin (passionate and committed self) who continued to work for the cause without expectation. Here, one is reminded of Bhagavad Gita’s nishkamkarma (expectation-less devotion to the assigned work) which reverberated in Aurobindo’s insistence on the generation of

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an urge to work. His distaste for politicians was largely due to the style of functioning of the Moderates who, by being committed to constitutional liberalism, projected themselves as ‘Loyalists’ and also servile followers of the Raj. As argued above, this was one of the major reasons for the 1907 split in the Indian National Congress. Aurobindo, being vehemently opposed to the Moderates, carved a new narrative of nationalism which was based on his conceptualisation of the antiBritish counter-offensive by drawing on newer ideational priorities; the sources were both indigenous and exogenous. There are imprints in Aurobindo’s strategical concerns of how the Sinn Fein organised a mass struggle in Ireland for their liberation from British rule; similarly, he also found an important source of inspiration in the indigenous discourses, including the Bhagavad Gita which he articulated in the twenty-four essays on the Gita. As will be shown in the book, to him, apart from providing spiritual impetus, the Gita contained inspirational directives to battle for morality, ethics and justice. Hence, it is fair to argue that Aurobindo was drawn to this dialogical text as it was complementary to his distinctive politico-ideological priorities.

IV Comprising five chapters along with an introduction and conclusion, Aurobindo: An Ideologue of New Nationalism, 1897–1910 is an attempt to grasp those specific politico-ideological priorities that gained momentum following the decline of Moderate nationalism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. With the availability of The Collected Works of Sri Aurobindo, it was now easier to comprehend his politicoideological priorities. Chapter 1 concentrates on his uniquely textured socio-economic and politico-cultural ideas which he articulated to defend his distinctive mode of thinking in contrast with his Moderate colleagues. His idea of New Nationalism or Democratic Nationalism was an ideological preference for mobilising the sections which remained peripheral in the Nationalist struggle in the past. Being led mostly by the lawyers, Moderate nationalism was the voice that was couched in constitutional-liberal parameters. By fiercely critiquing the Moderates for being submissive to the rulers, Aurobindo carved out a new narrative of Nationalist discourse which was not only innovative but a complete break with the past. In continuity, Chapter 2 dwells on his approach to nationalism which, by emphasising the critical role of the people at large, set out a different mode of conceptualising nationalism. According to him, nationalism ceased to be effective as a tool for political mobilisation unless it resulted in action or aggressive

Introduction

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resistance. There were two purposes for such a conceptualisation: on the one hand, in order to ideationally differ from the Moderates, he upheld nationalism as a driving force for galvanising the Nationalist activists into action; on the other hand, it was also a persuasive attempt to justify his stern critique of Moderate nationalism which also contributed to the articulation of many contrarian modes of Nationalist thinking. By devising passive resistance and boycott as devices for adversely affecting the British socio-economic interests, Aurobindo also stood out among the Nationalist thinkers, which was brought out unambiguously in Chapter 3. Not only did these techniques articulate a different voice but they also provided the Nationalists with a powerful design to champion their espoused goal of political freedom from British rule. With his focus on education, Aurobindo also hit the bullseye because it was a tool of empowerment. This is the main concern of Chapter 4. Long before Rabindranath Tagore and Gandhi felt the importance of mother tongues in the dissemination and production of knowledge, it was Aurobindo who, in his approach to education, put the concern in the public domain. By unambivalently suggesting that English education was a deliberate colonial design to sustain an alien rule, Aurobindo created a milieu in which the urge for education in the mother tongue was crystallised. The final chapter is about the spiritual–nationalist inclination of Aurobindo. His emphasis on the Bhagavad Gita was not just directed to justify his spiritual tilt but also to inspire a moribund nation which had a uniquely textured design with indigenous roots.

V Aurobindo: An Ideologue of New Nationalism is actually an argument to show how a fiercely waged ideological clash between the Moderates and their bête noire, the New Nationalists, culminated in the victory of the latter. This had serious implications in India’s Nationalist struggle, for, at one level, Aurobindo’s ideas were a reinforcement of the claim that Moderates failed to mobilise support for the Nationalist cause, and, at another level, they also created a new Nationalist voice which gradually engulfed large parts of the nation. Based on a thorough probe into the conceptual underpinning of his ideas, the book not only provides a detailed account of the nature of the ideational battle along with the consolidation of new conceptual modes of thinking but also firmly establishes the historical link between New Nationalism and Gandhian nationalism. In other words, by seeking to expand Nationalist constituencies by incorporating those who were left out in the earlier dispensation, New Nationalism ushered in a new era of

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Indian nationalism. It is true that ‘mass nationalism’ emerged with the rise of Gandhi as the leader of the Nationalist campaign; nonetheless, it will also not be improper to suggest that Aurobindo, insisting upon the involvement of the people at large in the Nationalist campaign, underlined the importance of mass mobilisation for human salvation. From this point of view, the claim that it was Aurobindo, who laid the conceptual foundation of mass struggle does not seem to be exaggerated. As historical evidence shows, the period when Aurobindo was actively involved in the Nationalist campaign witnessed the emergence of forces opposed to Moderate nationalism, on the one hand, and also the creation of a space, on the other, for those who became disillusioned with Moderates and their followers. This was an era when nationalism was reconceptualised and re-engineered to articulate a new voice of empowerment of a chained nation. Aurobindo and his New Nationalist compatriots were the main priests in this endeavour. Of his colleagues, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Lala Lajpat Rai and Bipin Chandra Pal, also known as Lal-Bal-Pal, who worked in the field to transform mass ire into a campaign against the exploitative colonial rule, Aurobindo can be stated to have devised a conceptual model to explain changes in the complexion of the Nationalist movement through his innumerable writings in the weeklies, Indu Prakash, Karmayogin and Bande Mataram. We must add a caveat here since the trio, Lal-Bal-Pal, also codified their politico-ideological views while being involved in the anti-British battle which were complementary to Aurobindo’s ideational preferences. For instance, Tilak’s Gita Rahasya (1887) and Aurobindo’s Essays on the Gita (1922 and 1928)  were, by being drawn on nearly the same conceptual beliefs, meant to rejuvenate a moribund nation which lost her vitality due to a peculiar unfolding of historical processes in the wake of the British rule in India.         

VI Revolutionary nationalism was an antithesis to Moderate nationalism; an antithesis that blossomed fully in the context of the 1905–1908 Swadeshi Movement in Bengal by adopting newer methods of confronting the colonial rule which signalled the arrival of a new phase in India’s Nationalist campaign for socio-cultural and political freedom. Along with his colleagues Lala Lajpat Rai, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Bipin Chandra Pal, Aurobindo was one of the chief architects of revolutionary nationalism. By drawing on the principal theme that he developed while elaborating upon his conceptualisation of the

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phenomenon, the text offers three major arguments in conjunction with a peripheral argument. The first of the arguments relates to the processes that helped him conceptualise his innovative thinking. As mentioned above, being unhappy with the Moderate nationalism, he was disenchanted with the Nationalist struggle that evolved at the behest of the Moderate nationalists. Being critical of what he described as the ‘mendicant politics of the Moderates’, he not only challenged the mode but also evolved his own version of nationalism which also justified the application of force, if necessary. The task of identifying the distinctive features of his ideational preferences was made easier because he left an enormous quantity of texts which were of great assistance in unearthing how he reached the conclusion as he did. The second argument is linked with the claim that Aurobindo represented a trend that grew in importance till the arrival of Gandhi on India’s Nationalist scene. He, in other words, was a harbinger of a new era in India’s Nationalist movement which was also articulated in a search for a conceptual modus operandi of the Nationalist assault. Hence, those who designed revolutionary nationalism elaborated its characteristics in terms of both derivative discourses and also based on their dialectical interconnection with the prevalent socioeconomic and politico-cultural realities of India. The third argument is about the design itself that evolved in contradiction with the Moderate version of Nationalist agitation. That Aurobindo stood out as a thinker is the principal concern of the third argument. Unlike some of his compatriots, he drew on examples from across the globe to establish revolutionary nationalism as a far more effective design of the Nationalist congregation. This is an argument which reinforces the point that the endeavour was not, at all, terroristic, as it was christened in the official discourses, but revolutionary since the means were linked with the Nationalist cause. Along with these three major arguments, there is one peripheral argument suggesting that despite being one of the principal architects of revolutionary nationalism, Aurobindo would not have been so crucial in conceptualising the phenomenon had he not had adequately intellectually equipped colleagues, like Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Lala Lajpat Rai, among others. This is an axiomatic statement as history proves. It does not therefore seem odd to argue that it would have been difficult for Gandhi to accomplish what he finally did without intellectual support from his equally illustrious colleagues, like Rabindranath Tagore, B.R. Ambedkar, Jawaharlal Nehru, Vallabhbhai Patel and Abul Kalam Azad, among others. There was no doubt that he was the navigator of the non-violent Nationalist campaign with, of course, assistance from others who also participated in the struggle for political

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freedom. Similarly, Aurobindo was one of the navigators who steered a specific course of action to reach the destination. In this respect, the peripheral argument governing the Nationalist discourses can also be said to have been woven together by multiple streams of ideas and values contributing to the articulation of a voice opposed to the British domination of India.

1 AUROBINDO An Ideologue of New Nationalism or Democratic Nationalism Aurobindo Ghose was a karmayogi, a Nationalist activist, who contributed immensely to the articulation of an alternative Nationalist voice. In contrast with loyalist Moderate nationalism, it was Aurobindo, who by exposing its inherent limitations, clearly articulated a completely new language of nationalism by insisting on Purna Swaraj or complete independence. The ideational battle that he, along with his colleagues in the Congress, waged against Moderate leadership led to a division within the organisation. A new group labelled ‘Nationalist’ or terrorist the government’s lexicon and the parlance of contemporary Indian historiography was formed. Moderates were sternly criticised by the young brigade led by LalBal-Pal as the politico-ideological design of the former was not considered adequate to wrest freedom. Being emotionally charged by their ideological priorities, Aurobindo was also persuaded to follow their path. After his return from England, he expressed his support for the anti-Moderate campaign by putting his views in the public domain in the weeklies Indu Prakash and Karmayogin and also in his edited mouthpiece, Bande Mataram. From the very outset, he minced no words to prove that Purna Swaraj was the only option and that the Moderate mode was just a design to sustain British hegemony. In his perception, the Moderate opposition was not only to garner favour from them but also a policy of appeasement. What led him to challenge the Moderate Congressmen was their failure to fulfil the role of true freedom fighters as they were politico-ideologically constrained. This was not only a source of consternation to young Aurobindo but also disillusioned him with what his predecessors had been so determined to pursue. Unlike many of his Nationalist colleagues, he was not an activist per se and devoted his energy to evolving a completely new mode of thinking which was, he felt, appropriate for rejuvenating a moribund nation. An analytical dissection of the ideas that he put forward through many of his written texts in the public domain reveals that he creatively blended his role as a participant and creative thinker who also popularised a different 25

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mode of approaching the struggle for freedom. It was somewhat easier for him to undertake such an exercise, presumably because he had, besides himself, equally dedicated Nationalists like Lal-Bal-Pal. Nonetheless, what stands out vis-à-vis Aurobindo were his writings with powerful messages in conformity with the Nationalist politicoideological preferences. Although Moderate Congressmen formally retained their hegemony in the Congress till the differences with their opponents surfaced in the 1907 Surat Congress, the rebellious group ousted them with their failure to effectively counter the Nationalist point of view. It did not therefore seem odd that most of Aurobindo’s initial writings in Indu Prakash and Karmayogin concentrated on exposing the inherent limitations of the Moderate approach to nationalism. By characterising Moderates as mendicants, the Nationalists forcefully argued their method as inappropriate for attaining complete Swaraj. With his sustained campaign against the erstwhile Moderate leaders, Aurobindo soon proved himself indispensable for the Nationalists, largely due to his published essays. Besides creating a space for the Nationalists, Aurobindo also acted critically in expanding their influence among those who were disgruntled with the Moderate means. Aurobindo was thus an ideologue as well, in the sense that he evolved a persuasive alternative to the Moderate Nationalist voice. An opponent to British rule, his essays carved a new narrative of the indigenous struggle for freedom. In two ways, his creative essays introduced a new dimension to the Nationalist endeavour which was, so far, attempts at seeking concessions from the rulers. First, the texts epitomised an articulation of views which were directed to develop a space for clamour for an independent India long before it was formally articulated by the Gandhian Congress in the 1929 Lahore session. In this sense, his essays also represented a complete break from the past when protests were meant to persuade the colonisers to grant favours to the Indians. Second, his creative texts also ushered in a new era in India’s freedom struggle in the sense that instead of being an annual event, the campaign for freedom needed to be pursued in a sustained manner. In other words, in opposition to the episodic nature of Moderate opposition to the rulers, Aurobindo’s essays were also harbingers of a new design of Nationalist politics. It was now conceived as a sustained battle against the exploiters from a foreign land. Furthermore, nationalism was no longer monochromatic; it became multidimensional in ideational terms. As an effective ideologue of revolutionary nationalism that drew on indigenous tradition as well, Aurobindo evolved a trend in India’s struggle for freedom that gained momentum as history progressed. The key to his politico-ideological priorities was his insistence on

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conceptualising the Nationalist voice in a fashion which the Moderates seemed to have undermined. One of the explanations for their failure to rouse Nationalist fervour in the country was located in their preference for couching the language of protest in terms of Western discourses. And, that too in English, the language of the elites. Hence, Moderate nationalism remained confined to lawyers located primarily in the metropolitan cities of Calcutta and Bombay. The fact that Moderate nationalism had a very narrow social basis was a serious limitation that the Revolutionary Nationalists endeavoured to meaningfully address; their effort yielded results, but their class/caste backgrounds did not allow them to be as widespread as the Gandhian campaign in the 1920s. Rabindranath Tagore’s novel of 1916, Ghare Baire, is illustrative of this limitation. The bard showed how the Revolutionary Nationalists failed to significantly increase their sphere of influence due to their caste and class prejudices, besides their inability to develop bonhomie with the Muslims who constituted more than half of Bengal’s demography. It is true that the 1905–1908 Swadeshi Movement forced the rulers to rescind the first partition of Bengal. Nonetheless, there is no denying that the campaign created conditions for socio-cultural distances between the two major communities in Bengal which became unbridgeable over time. There is a valid question here: Did Aurobindo then champion the Hindu Nationalist ethos despite being aware that Muslims constituted a significant chunk of Bengal’s demography? It is neither easy to dismiss nor uncritically accept the accusation since he wrote extensively in the weekly, Bande Mataram, in favour of building camaraderie between Hindus and Muslims. There is hardly a plausible explanation of such an incomprehensible conundrum as Aurobindo never gave a clue. However, one may address this by characterising his decision to accept the nation as being a mother as nothing but a strategy to build a strong Nationalist organisation by seeking to emotionally connect those fighting for liberation. With the institutionalisation of the Muslim League as an exclusive forum for Muslims in 1906, he appeared to have accepted that his appeal was likely to be rejected because of the alleged Hindu bias of the Congress. Apart from suggesting that Hindu–Muslim amity was needed for India’s political salvation in many of their written texts, the fact that they depended largely on those Indian icons who were also Hindus alienated the Muslims to a significant extent; this remained till the arrival of Gandhi on the Indian scene. This chapter aims to delve into the processes accounting for the rise of the conceptual parameters that Aurobindo evolved through his myriad writings. It is true that one notices elements of spiritualism in his written tracts which flourished in full form once he started a new

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life in the French colony, Pondicherry; what remains a relatively less studied aspect of his life are the politico-ideological views and how they became integral to India’s Nationalist thoughts. The chapter, by seeking to address this issue, shall bring out the unique dimensions of his ideas in a context when the Nationalists were also undergoing a politicoideological metamorphosis. Separately textured, Aurobindo’s ideas ushered a new era in Indian nationalism, and the chapter, by dwelling on how it happened, shall be useful to comprehend the relatively unknown aspects of his politico-ideological preferences. This chapter has two integral components: in order to lay out Aurobindo’s conceptual universe, the first part shall focus on a very useful tract, entitled ‘The Bourgeois and the Samurai’, published in Bande Mataram—in this essay, he concentrated on why Indians lagged behind the rest of the world and why Japan progressed to become one of the leading nations in the comity of nations. The second part is an exposition of his own ideas with reference to the theoretical framework that he developed in this critical text in Bande Mataram. By dwelling on why India lost the race, he scrutinised India’s history by looking at how historical forces inhibited the growth and consolidation of the spirit of the Samurai and encouraged the bourgeois mindset to prevail over it. As argued in the book, Aurobindo’s writings captured a significant transition in Bengal’s socio-cultural landscape. The purpose of this chapter is to elaborate on the processes which Aurobindo’s critical texts epitomised. Unlike other principal Revolutionary Nationalist ideologues, Lal-Bal-Pal, Aurobindo underlined the importance of communal camaraderie, especially between Hindus and Muslims, and yet he focused on the Hindu’s glorious past, perhaps to seek to assuage the Hindu feelings which were brutally subdued by the Muslim kings and emperors in what had been arbitrarily demarcated by the British and loyalist historians as the medieval period. The chapter thus argues that despite being aware of the criticality of Hindu–Muslim amity for a successful Nationalist campaign, Aurobindo was unable to rise above the dominant ideological conditionalities while designing his unique conceptualisation of nationalism and the Nationalist campaign. The argument is placed in two complementary components: the first part builds the argument on the basis of his extensive discussion of Indian polity from the past to the present; his defence of the point drew on the claim that the past Hindu civilisation, by being remarkably rich, put India globally in an enviable position. The Muslim intervention radically altered the milieu. This was the underlying thread of the four essays on Indian polity. Aurobindo, however, changed his perception when he found that Muslims also rose to prominence; he seemed to have changed his strategy which also suggests that it was driven by

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the contextual peculiarities confronting him. The road to bring about changes in the ideational priorities did not seem to have received attention among the Revolutionary Nationalists to the extent it was expected. With the foundation of the Muslim League as the Muslim mouthpiece, Muslims found their political platform to put before the authorities their demands. For Aurobindo, there was hardly an option at his disposal because despite having understood the situation, he was torn between his concern for bonhomie between Hindus and Muslims and the demand for complete Swaraj in rather divisive circumstances.

Conceptual Tapestry Aurobindo was a Nationalist par excellence who evolved his ideas on the basis of well-defined conceptual parameters. There are two interrelated but crucial dimensions in Aurobindo’s thought. The first dimension that has already been dealt with earlier needs reiteration. As one of the architects of Revolutionary Nationalists, Aurobindo believed in Sanatan Hinduism which he clarified beyond doubt in his famous Uttarpara speech (1909). Defending his faith in Sanatan Hinduism, he argued that it did not belong to any particular religious group but to humanity as a whole. Hence, the religious segregation in terms of religious identities was of no analytical value. Sanatan Hinduism is thus ‘a universal religion which embraces all others’,1 argued Aurobindo. Conceptually, the argument makes sense although the clamour for submerging the identities of other religions, especially in the context of India’s Nationalist campaign during the Revolutionary Nationalist phase, was hardly persuasive. So, Aurobindo was claimed to have been different from Rabindranath Tagore and Gandhi who, instead of upholding Sanatan Hinduism, championed ‘the religion of Man’ to argue that humanism was prior to one’s religious identity. Tagore’s insistence on Vedas and Upanishads being sources of wisdom hardly received strong criticism because he explained that, unlike other religious texts which were accounts of a particular phase of history highlighting specific individuals, they were chronicles of history written over centuries by many wise men and women. Gandhi was a hardcore Hindu although he never dissuaded others from practising their religion. He went to the extent of accepting cow sacrifice by the Muslims since it was a source of cheap protein which was necessary for their physical well-being. Nonetheless, he did not abdicate his duty as a Hindu which was evident when he suggested in Hind Swaraj (1909) that he would persuade them to stop killing cows as they were worshipped by their Hindu brethren. One, however, does notice such a qualified

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statement in Aurobindo’s written text or public speeches. What is perhaps most evident is to suggest that it was a context-driven response of Aurobindo. The explanation holds water because of the shrinking of the Nationalist space during the Moderate phase; Aurobindo’s espousal of Sanatan Hinduism was thus a cementing device to bring together those devoted to the cause. Having read the historical trends, especially after the Swadeshi Movement (1905–1908), he also understood that it was difficult to evolve a common Nationalist platform involving both Hindus and Muslims. Perhaps due to the strategic failure of the Swadeshi activists, Muslims were alienated which was persuasively narrativised by Rabindranath Tagore in Ghare Baire (1916). Nonetheless, Aurobindo’s Nationalist discourse was most innovative and also an attempt to devise a meaningful contextual design. As argued earlier, he, while articulating his distinct politico-ideological views, drew on experiences from other countries. In this respect, his assessment of how India and Japan rose as nations is worth mentioning. According to him, both these nations came under the powerful influence of Western ideas and yet the trajectories of their development were radically different: Japan, despite being one of the smallest nation states, ‘became one of the mightiest powers in the modern world [while India] despite being an heir to a rich legacy … remains a weak, distracted subject and famine-stricken people politically, economically, morally and intellectually dependent on the foreigner and unable to realize its great possibilities’.2 Being very perceptive, Aurobindo hit the bullseye. The issue he raised was most pertinent: Japan had established her independent existence in the comity of nations by realising her full potential which was evident when Japan defeated Russia in 1904. India lagged despite being well ahead of Japan in many respects. As one who always felt that India’s weaknesses were created, and hence, they could be effectively addressed, Aurobindo drew on the Japanese example. Seeking to understand the reason for this, he stated that it was ‘because Japan has “reformed” herself and got rid of ideas and institutions unsuited to modern times, while India clings obstinately to so much that is outworking and effete’ (ibid.). His explanation draws our attention to two aspects of the evolution of two nation states: on the one hand, it was claimed that Japan excelled since she meaningfully ‘assimilated Western Science and organization [while] India has failed in this all-important task of assimilation’ (ibid.). Conventional explanation is usually couched to explain the Japanese success in mastering the machines which Aurobindo disputed by saying that it was based on a surface understanding of the cycle of development. As he emphasised, what was critical was ‘the spirit in man [reflected] … in his determination to

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attain the goal; it is the spirit in man which moulds his fate … and it is the spirit of a nation which determines its history’ (ibid.). Intrinsic here are three points which are important pillars of Aurobindo’s politicoideological priorities: first, that he always perceived the role of human beings as critical to the achievement of a goal has been reiterated here. In contrast with Moderate insistence that India’s political salvation was possible under British tutelage, Aurobindo carved a new Nationalist narrative by emphasising the role of the Indians in pursuing their politico-ideological objectives. Second, since he was aware that the nation’s might did not depend on access to machines and other sources of coercive power, he favoured organisations of men and women with a well-defined goal to direct them. In this respect, he held views different from his Revolutionary Nationalist colleagues who supported the ‘hitand-run’ tactic of guerrilla warfare. Although, unlike the Moderates and Gandhi, he did not rule out violence if it was of use, he always preferred organised attacks on British authorities. Finally, in his model of nationalism, the role of the ideologically charged activists was most critical. Here, he implicitly hinted at two important components: (a) the articulation of an inspirational ideology as it enabled individuals to pursue a path for their salvation, and (b) the consolidation of a committed set of people willing to make even the supreme sacrifice for the Nationalist cause. His endeavour was thus directed to create an ideationally motivated set of Nationalists ready to embark on activities leading to the attainment of specific politico-ideological preferences. In order to reinforce the argument, Aurobindo drew on the history of Japan and India. He was intrigued as to why, despite both having a well-entrenched socio-cultural heritage, Japan became a global power while India miserably failed. Japan succeeded since she did not allow herself to be swallowed by Western culture while this was not true of India. As Aurobindo articulated, ‘Japan remained faithful to her ancient spirit; she merely took over certain forms of European social and political organization necessary to complete her culture under modern conditions and poured into these forms the old potent dynamic spirit of Japan, the spirit of the Samurai.’3 Basic here is the argument that Japan retained her distinctive civilisational ethos while welcoming those parts of Western civilisation which were of use in further strengthening her. So, it was not a blind submission to Western ideas, but a strategic decision to be enriched with help from outside. In other words, it was not an unconditional acceptance of derivative knowledge but was governed by an astute calculation by the Japanese. In the case of India, it was just the opposite. As soon as the British rulers arrived in India, there was a rat race to prove how good the ruled were as subjects. As a result, European culture was readily accepted by those who mattered then in

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India. With the welcoming Indians in its support, European culture ‘has had upon [India] a powerful disintegrating and destructive influence, but has been powerless to reconstruct or revivify’. In consequence, a new culture evolved to serve the necessities and interests of the foreign rulers. It was a type which was not Indian but foreign. The impact was devastating, argued Aurobindo, because ‘in almost all our social, political, educational, literary and religious activities, the spirit of this new and foreign graft has predominated and determined the extent and quality of our progress’ (1095). In order to conceptualise the differences in the pace of progress, Aurobindo coined new terms: to understand the Indian progress, his preferred expression was ‘bourgeois’ while for Japan, it was ‘Samurai’. Following the distinction, he now concluded that ‘in this single difference is comprised the whole contrasted histories of the two nations during the twentieth century’ (1108). Critical here is the argument that Aurobindo evolved to conceptualise why India lagged behind Japan as a nation state. Predominant here is the idea that servility to an imposed social, economic and political design which gradually gained strength as British colonialism struck roots in India. In simple terms, by being opposed to blindly following the alien mode of thinking and concomitant acts, completely ignoring the indigenous socioeconomic and politico-cultural heritage, Aurobindo re-emphasised how the bourgeois caused irreparable damage to the foundational values on which a nation rested. India, by uncritically accepting the British system in all respects, created a milieu in which the Samurai mindset was not allowed to prosper. Implicit here are two claims: on the one hand, by characterising Indians as bourgeois, Aurobindo referred to a servile mindset that evolved with the consolidation of British rule in India; such a mindset was undoubtedly imposed although it grew in importance with the uncritical acceptance of the derivative ideas and practices that flourished in the wake of colonialism. Along with his critical evaluation of the bourgeois mindset, he also appreciated, in contrast, the importance of Samurai, emphasising the importance of well-thought-out views for guiding human life. In order to understand Aurobindo’s distinction between these two conceptual categories, an elaborate discussion is perfectly in order. First, he delved into how he conceived of bourgeois as a ‘gift’ of British colonialism. In specific terms, the concept entails those wellnurtured negative qualities of individuals which flourished in India in the wake of alien hegemony. A bourgeois was, according to Aurobindo, a man of facile sentiments and skin-deep personality; generally enlightened, but not inconveniently illuminated. [Furthermore], in love with his life, his ease and above all things his comforts, he prescribes the secure maintenance of these precious possessions as

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the first indispensable condition of all action in politics and society; whatever tends to disturb or destroy them, he condenses foolish, harebrained, dangerous or fanatical … and ready to repress by any means in his power. (1093)

Most perceptive in his thinking, Aurobindo spelt out the characteristics of bourgeois, mainly with reference to his existential experiences. As argued in other chapters, being vehemently opposed to the Moderates, he questioned their mode of imitative courses of politico-ideological activities. In fact, the aforementioned features which the bourgeois manifested were visible as even a cursory account of Moderate nationalism revealed; they were ‘status-quoists’ which was articulated in their mode of opposition to British rule, and hence, they wanted India’s politico-ideological transformation within the foreign domination. The purpose was, according to Aurobindo, to protect their partisan interests at the cost of the people at large. Basic here is the critique of Moderate politics that hinged on idioms of appreciation of British rule and concomitant politico-ideological activities protecting the administration as it was protective of their personal interests. So well entrenched were their ideas supportive of being servile to alien rule, the bourgeois condemned fiery self-annihilating enthusiasm, noble fanaticism, relentless and heroic pursuit of an object, the original brain that brings what is distant and ungrasped into the boundaries of reality, the dynamic Will and genius which makes impossible possible; … if he confronts people who are determined to accomplish the goal at any cost, he will condemn him as a learned idiot; [and also,] face-to-face with the living hero, he will decry him as a dangerous madman - unless and until he sees on the head of either crown of success and assured reputation. (1094)

In order to further strengthen his point, he re-emphasised those qualities which one was required to fiercely condemn to create a new and vibrant India. It was a matter of common knowledge, Aurobindo affirmed, that a bourgeois was scared of effective challenges to his/her grip on society since it amounted to their decline. Hence, they never appreciated an independent voice to strike roots; what was thus aspired was a sustained endeavour to retain the prevalent power relationships in society which were neither threatening nor caused harmed to their hegemony in collaboration with the foreign government. For the colonisers, it was of great help in maintaining their firm grip on India. As Aurobindo commented, ‘such a type gives stability to a society; it cannot reform or revolutionise it; such a type may make politics of a nation safe, decorous

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and reputable. It cannot make that nation great or free.’ Here, Aurobindo was candid in his assessment of the erstwhile modes of opposition to British rule. The Moderates were, for instance, hardly a threat to colonisers since they conformed to the politico-ideological preferences of the rulers. Their voice of protest was thus purely ornamental because it never challenged colonial rule and only aimed at fulfilling concessional demands. The rulers were happy because the Moderate Nationalists were easily sold out to the former who granted concessions which were conducive to the continuity of the Raj.

History of Bourgeois After having identified the principal features of the bourgeois as a phenomenon, Aurobindo delved into the historical processes leading to its growth and consolidation in India. His main hypothesis was, ‘the bourgeois as a distinct and well-evolved entity is an entirely modern product in India, he is the creation of British policy, English education and Western civilization’ (1096). The argument is crystal clear: first, the growth and consolidation of ideas in support of a bourgeois owed to the British rule. It was a political project for the colonisers to forcibly transform Indians into a servile race. The method that the rulers deployed was simple but very effective: a set of Indians was required to appreciate and admire the British rule; this was rather easily done, perhaps due to the torturous rule of the medieval era. Beginning with Rammohun Roy, the Britishers were aided by a powerful set of Indian intellectuals who saw British rule as a panacea in contrast with the erstwhile governance by the Muslim rulers. Bankim, in his novel, Anandamath, endorsed the idea. The trend followed, leading to the rise of Moderate nationalism in India. Taking cues from his predecessors, Aurobindo clearly stated that contrary to the ancient and medieval eras when a bourgeois did not find ‘a favourable soil for his growth’, British India created a conducive milieu for his growth and sustenance. As ancient India helped build India’s socio-economic and politico-cultural heritage, the bourgeois mentality had failed to strike roots in India. The obvious result was manifested in the consolidation of a powerful mindset contributing to India’s rise in the fields of literature, science and religion. It was an era when ‘great ideals were developed to mould individual minds [not for] selfish gains [but for] the gains of humanity as a whole’ (1097). Medieval India did not seem to have provided a favourable milieu for the bourgeois to grow as it did during British rule. As it was an era of uncertainty, chaos and disintegration, the rulers favoured individuals with strong character

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and steadfast commitment to the cause and a high sense of morality. In view of this, the circumstances did not exactly favour the bourgeois mindset to strike roots in India. With the defeat of the sepoys by the conquerors in 1857, the situation was reversed and the bourgeois behavioural traits began to be openly encouraged (1098). It was not an exception as Aurobindo claimed, since with the apparent invincibility of the Roman Empire, the elites became bourgeois in their lifestyle as they felt that there was no power to challenge the Roman hegemony. However, history demonstrated that over time, the Roman Empire saw its eclipse due to internal squabbles among the elites and enemies from outside. By drawing a parallel between the Roman and British empires, Aurobindo not only perceptively commented on the origin of the bourgeois but also its destruction in due course. British rule led to the growth of the bourgeois, and an environment was created to foster it; ‘the plant grew so swiftly because a forcing-house had been created for his rapid cultivation and the soil was kept suitably shallow and the air made warm and humid for his needs’ (1098). The environment was made conducive by putting in place ‘a guaranteed and perfect security for his person, property and pursuits, [as] peace, comfort and safety are the very breath of his nostrils’ (1098). As a result, the bourgeois thrived without contributing to the preparation of the milieu in which he was born and nurtured. As per Aurobindo, the situation was probably most safe for the bourgeois to strike roots since he was asked to stand as the Head of a disarmed and dependent society, secured from external disturbance and tied down to a rigid internal tranquility by the deprivation of all functions except those of breadwinner and taxpayer and to vouch himself to the world by a respectable but not remarkable education and achievement as the visible proof of England’s civilizing mission (1098–1099).

So, bourgeois was an outcome of deliberate policies pursued by the British government to develop reliable indigenous partners. This had two serious implications for the rise and consolidation of colonialism in India: on the one hand, the growth of the bourgeois who remained indifferent to their brethren was of great help to the foreigners; on the other hand, it also helped the British rulers to avoid being blamed for their misdeeds as the empire executed most of her policies through her Indian partners. The outcome was the consolidation of a society which drew its sustenance from the British politico-ideological preferences. Indian society was gradually moulded by British ideas which also led to the steady decline of Indian values, followed by the firm grip of the ideas of the rulers. The indigenous mindset lost its

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distinct Indian flavour and happily imbibed the derivative ideas and values to remain close to the alien rulers. The result was disastrous for Indians who became a tool for British governance since, as Aurobindo highlighted, ‘British rule had no need for scholars, wanted clerks; British policy welcomed the pedant but feared, even when it honoured, the thinker, for the strong mind might pierce through shows to the truth and the deep thought teach the people to embrace great ideals and live and die for them’ (1100). The argument is, on the one hand, a critique of English education and, on the other, a reiteration of the view that the ‘pen is mightier than sword’. As shown in Chapter 4, Macaulay’s 1835 Minutes which formally introduced English education in India, transformed the system into a machine for producing clerks for the government and other British mercantile offices. In place of generating knowledge, English education, thus, institutionalised a mechanical system of learning which was neither intellectually provocative nor mentally stimulating. The other component of his argument was a reinforcement of the claim that unless a society was intellectually alert, its future was fragile, and this was a call for evolving appropriate models of politico-ideological changes in India. As a consequence, Indians lost their voice. It was most persuasively articulated by Aurobindo when he said that the news of the world life poured in on us through the foreign telegrams and papers, we read English books, we talked about economics and politics, science and history, enlightenment and education, Rousseau, Mill, Bentham, Burke and used the language of life that was not ours, in the vein [sic] belief that so we become cosmopolitans and men of enlightenment. (1102)

This is perhaps one of the most powerful expressions of how Indians became servile in thought and ideas since they were deprived of indigenous knowledge, which was most disenchanting to Revolutionary Nationalists. Aurobindo, while identifying this lacuna in the processes of dissemination of knowledge under British rule, also laid the foundation for an alternative mode of learning. The need was urgently felt by him since the British system of learning was a conspiracy to completely dissociate Indians from their unique socio-cultural roots. Being dismissive of such a debilitating design of the British, he further argued that we read of and believed in English economy, while we lived under Indian conditions, and worshipped the free trade which was starving us to death as a nation. We professed notions of equality, and separated ourselves from the people, of democracy, and were the servants of absolutism. (1103)

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Explicit here was his virulent attack on the obvious limitations of the British rule which contributed to the rise and consolidation of an absolutist authority, a type of governance which was meant to serve the masters at the cost of the ruled.

The Outcome Long before it was articulated by Rabindranath Tagore and Gandhi, Aurobindo realised that the only aim of colonisers was to inculcate those values through education and other modes which helped them to create a comprador nation. In a different form, the argument appeared in Dadabhai Naoroji’s Poverty and Un-British Rule in India which provided a well-argued statement on how the British rulers plundered India without showing any concern for the governed. Aurobindo, however, added a new dimension to the argument by emphasising that the Indians needed to be blamed equally since the Indian bourgeois was keen to prove his loyalty to the British rulers to gain favours from them. So long as such bankruptcy of mind was allowed to survive, Indians remained as backward as they had been in the past. By condemning Indians’ servile mindset, he further argued that ‘we were ruled by the shopkeepers and consented enthusiastically to think of them as angels.… We happily abdicated those virtues, [that] our forefathers had handed down to us’ (1104). Indians who readily accepted the derivative values happily and zealously thus needed to be blamed equally—by being respectful to those values which were transmitted to them, the governed also helped the foreigners to maintain a firm grip over India. By castigating those who nurtured the belief that by imitating the British socio-cultural values, they became Europeanised, Aurobindo mentioned that it was a false perception on two counts: (a) servility was neither respectful nor sustained the creative zeal of the servile community; (b) and with bourgeois servility, not only was it a design for Indians to remain loyal to the rulers but it was also a mechanism to sustain the mindset. The outcome was disastrous. In the words of Aurobindo, we were Europeanizing ourselves, and moving rapidly toward political, social, economical (sic), moral and intellectual progress. The consummation of our political progress was a Congress which yearly passed resolutions it had no power to put in practice, statesmen (sic) whose highest function was to ask questions which need not even be answered, councillors who would have been surprised if they had not been consulted, politicians who did not even know that Right never lives until it has a Might to support it. (1104)

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Crucial here are three powerful arguments which Aurobindo built on the basis of his own understanding of India’s prevalent political realities and the subservient role of the Indians who just discharged their roles as bourgeois. First, questioning the rat race for imbibing the European lifestyle and appreciation of the derivative Western discourses, he underlined a source of the weaknesses which were responsible for India’s rise as a strong nation. Second, being critical of the moderate Congress, he also castigated the Congress leadership for having done their duties merely by passing annual resolutions; this was a means to deceive the nation and also a design to please the rulers which also confirmed their servile mentality. Finally, he was naturally not happy with the way the Nationalist campaign was organised. Here lies one of the conceptual roots of revolutionary nationalism which was based on associating the snatching of rights with the application of might. As is well known, his colleagues, Lal-Bal-Pal resented the functioning of the Congress very strongly in the 1907 Surat Congress because the Moderates never allowed the idea that rights, once denied, needed to be grabbed by force, if necessary. Implicit in his views was a sharp critique of the mechanism that the rulers developed to govern India in accordance with their politicoideological priorities. One of the most powerful mechanisms was the introduction of English education which Indians happily accepted as it was a passport to bourgeois life. With the rapid popularity of English education, the indigenous mode of learning lost its viability, although attempts were continuously made by the Nationalist Indians to retain what they considered to be the foundational views of Indian civilisation; the effort was laudable, but not effective enough to counter the British endeavour. Hence Aurobindo exhorted that ‘never was an education more remote from all that education truly denotes’ (1104). Intrinsic here was his sharp criticism of English education which was meant to prepare Indians for the government and other jobs where English-knowing individuals were required. Resorting to a metaphor, he further stated that English education ‘trained a tame parrot to live in a cage and talk of the joys of the forest’ (1104). Despite being a source of earning livelihood for many Indians or for converting themselves as bourgeois, to borrow from Aurobindo’s lexicon, English education was a ploy to destroy the nation by delinking the people from their socio-cultural roots. Ultimately, Indians were to be made ‘the tame parrots’ singing to the tune of their masters. So, the British rule was a cover to establish a design of making Indians permanently bourgeois. Hence, he argued that British rule, Britain’s civilizing mission in India has been the record of success in history in the hypnosis of a nation [because] it persuaded

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us to live in a death of the will and its activities, taking a series of hallucinations for real things and creating in ourselves the condition of morbid weakness the hypnotist desired, until the Master of a mightier hypnosis laid His finger on India’s eyes and cried ‘Awake’. Then only the spell was broken, the slumbering mind realized itself and dead soul lived again. (1104)

Here, he put the entire blame on the rulers which was understandable since the colonisers occupied India for their own partisan gain. The rulers were too smart to evolve techniques for sustaining their politicoideological hegemony. Aurobindo was, however, optimistic as history showed that however mighty the ruler could be, he was likely to be defeated by historical forces emanating from within. Hence, it did not seem an exaggeration that he believed that one day, the cycle of history was certain to be reversed. His explanation appeared to be too generic since, as history proves, colonialism emerged as a mechanism for the exploitation of the relatively less strong nations. As Indian history underlined, India lost to the British army because of the betrayal by some Indians of their indigenous rulers, and also those who gallantly fought the intruders had inadequate resources. Once India was captured, the rulers devised a mechanism of control, as argued above. This did not escape Aurobindo’s attention. While explaining the smooth running of British governance, he emphasised the critical role of English education. That it was accepted by the Indians with enthusiasm revealed that they did not mind becoming ‘bourgeois’; this, Aurobindo very clearly spelt out by saying that ‘the education which was a poison to all true elements of national strength and greatness, was meat and drink to the bourgeois [because, the bourgeois] delights in convention, [as] truth is too hard a taskmaster and makes too severe a demand on character, energy and intellect [which led them to] … crave for superficiality’ (1105). Reinforcing his earlier argument, he thus highlighted how the parasitic bourgeois survived by being truthful to his character as a bourgeois. Being a product of historical processes unleashed by colonialism, the bourgeois never realised that they were perfecting a piece of machinery which was harmful to the Indians. The reason was simple as per Aurobindo. By being servile, a bourgeois enjoyed a comfortable life which was not possible otherwise; here, his priority was different, and hence, he happily gave up the ideas supporting India’s emancipation since it meant losing his pompous life by being uncritical of British governance. It was likely that a bourgeois was always keen to undertake the activities which would protect him and keep him comfortable. This is one part of Aurobindo’s argument; the other part relates to the positive role that the bourgeois occasionally played. Here, he referred to

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the role of a bourgeois in social transformation; perhaps, he had in mind the contribution made by the Anglicised Brahmo Samaj. The Samaj’s members raised their voices against prejudicial socio-cultural practices. As per Aurobindo, they opted for this as ‘the effort to remould society and rebuild the nation is too huge and perilous a task for a comfortable citizen, but he [is] quite prepared to condemn old and inconvenient institutions and superstitions and lend his hand to a few changes which will make social life more pleasant and comfortable’ (1105). Evident is the point that the bourgeois undertook efforts to eradicate the wellentrenched archaic norms and institutions for his own sake. Because the change was for his benefit, he engaged himself in this mission with two purposes: by being involved in these activities, he remained visible; he also endorsed his claim that he was equally useful for India’s sociocultural transformation. Aurobindo, however, drew our attention to the fact that a bourgeois preferred to accept this role since it was also of support to their selfish interests. Not only would this help a bourgeois, this endeavour was, in other words, directed to create a space in India’s Nationalist campaign and was also of assistance to him for the claim that his effort was an aid to metamorphose the Indian mind, governed by primordial values and mores. That Aurobindo was not persuaded by what a bourgeois preferred to do was illustrated when he said that ‘superficiality, unreality of thought and deed thus became the stamp of all [his] activities’ (1105). Clearly articulated, the argument typifies one of the fundamental pillars of Aurobindo’s politico-ideological priorities. In so far as his assessment of a bourgeois was concerned, he did not mince his words to condemn the role of a bourgeois since it was neither useful for the Nationalist struggle nor contributed to the development and sustenance of a mindset in its favour. Being selfish, a bourgeois remained committed to those activities which were of utility for his personal benefit at the cost of the people at large. One may, however, dispute the claim as the history of Brahmo Samaj amply proves. As the available literature shows, the role of Brahmo Samaj in the shaping of the modern Indian mind cannot be so easily dismissed.4 Indeed, the Samaj never participated directly in the Nationalist campaign; nonetheless, by battling against the age-old prejudicial socio-cultural practices, the members of the Samaj prepared the ground on which the Nationalist movement rested. It would not be an exaggeration to suggest that despite being identified as bourgeois, Rammohun Roy, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, Debendranath Tagore, Keshabchandra Sen and Rabindranath Tagore, among others, played useful roles in associating the battle against the archaic and demeaning socio-cultural practices with the Nationalist campaign which figured prominently in the Nationalist agenda, especially with the arrival of

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Gandhi on the Indian political scene. The voice that the youngest of the Tagore family, Rabindranath Tagore, articulated is illustrative here. In his myriad creative writings, he expressed a well-thought-out view that Indians failed to accomplish the Nationalist goal as they were crippled by many of the divisive socio-cultural traits, practised openly by a section of the Indians to alienate the largest of them.5 A passionate Nationalist, Aurobindo was perhaps deeply anguished by the Moderate mode of Nationalist counter-attack against foreign rule. His model may have limitations, but it is persuasive in view of the nature of Moderate nationalism as per the available research-based insights.6 Besides elaborating on why the Indian Nationalist campaign did not take off at the aegis of the Moderates since they were all bourgeois in their character and activities, Aurobindo also provided an alternative model. As a participant in the Swadeshi Movement (1905–1908), he appreciated the campaign as a harbinger of a new era in India’s Nationalist endeavour. Condemning those who labelled the Swadeshi Movement as ‘a natural development of the old’ (1106), he forcefully argued that it was not so for at least three fundamental reasons: first, the movement was an articulation of a voice that drew on a newly conceptualised mode of nationalism which was not only contrary to the Moderate methods but also a concerted attempt to involve those who were left behind in the erstwhile campaigns against the rulers. Instead of seeking to fulfil the Nationalist demands by the Moderate methods of ‘prayer, petition and protest’ or typical liberal-constitutional means, Aurobindo highlighted the unique character of the Swadeshi Movement by drawing attention to ‘Swadeshi, Swaraj and Self-help’ which never appeared on the Nationalist agenda. Here, Aurobindo’s conceptual intervention is very useful in comprehending why the Swadeshi campaign was qualitatively different from those that the Moderates led to demonstrate their mode of anti-British protest. What is striking here is his attempt to show that Moderate nationalism was not, at all, useful for removing the British or for attaining Swaraj (self-rule). In its place, the alternative that he, along with colleagues Lal-Bal-Pal, evolved was effective enough to wrest political freedom. According to him, the new nationalism is the very antithesis, the complete and vehement negation of the old [which] … sought to make a wider circle of activity, freer living-room and a more comfortable and eminent position of the bourgeois, to prolong the unnatural and evil conditions of which the subject nations died under the civilizing rule of Rome and which the British rule has recreated in India; the new seeks to replace the bourgeois by the Samurai and to shatter the prison house which the nineteenth century made for our mother and

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Aurobindo build anew a palace for his glory, a garden for her pleasure, a free domain for her freedom and her pride. (1105–1106)

There are two levels at which Aurobindo pitched his argument: at a very general level, he emphasised that revolutionary nationalism was completely different from mendicant politics that the Moderates refined since the foundation of the Indian National Congress in 1885 at the behest of the British rulers; at a more specific level, he insisted the emulation of the qualities of a Samurai while elaborating the features of the Nationalist campaign that he and his co-workers preferred to undertake. As soon as he resorted to the metaphor of the Samurai, it was clear that he supported the activities for hitting the British interests on the one hand, and, on the other, he also emphasised the need to weed out the bourgeois political design which the Moderates always put forward. It was evident when he further suggested that the old [Moderates] looked only to the power and interests of the educated, enlightened middle class, and shrank from the ignorant, the uneducated, the livers in the past, the outer unilluminated barbarian, drawing aside the hem of its robes lest it should touch impurity. The new overlaps every barrier; it calls the clerk at his counter, the trader in his shop, the peasant at his plough; it summons the Brahman from his temple and takes the hand of Chandala [untouchables] in his degradation.… Its eyes search the jungle for the Santal and travels the hills for the wild tribes of the mountains.… it speaks to the illiterate or the man in the street in such rude vigorous language as he best understands, to youth and enthusiast in accents of poetry, in language of fire, to the thinker in terms of philosophy and logic, to the Hindu it repeats the name of Kali [Goddess], to the Mohomedan it spurs to action for the glory of Islam. It cries to all to come forth, to help in God’s work and remake a nation, each with what his creed or his culture, his strength, his manhood or his genius can give to the new nationality. (1106)

There cannot be a more elaborate description of revolutionary nationalism than the above statement of Aurobindo. An analytical dissection of the argument reveals that, besides identifying the features of the new variant of Nationalist intervention, it also contains a powerful philosophical reason to defend his point of view. The above argument will also help us counter many of the widely circulated assumptions that were claimed to have influenced Aurobindo. Apart from defusing the argument that he was a vociferous supporter of ‘religious’ nationalism, the above statement clearly establishes just the opposite view: Aurobindo was one of the first few Nationalists who always believed in composite

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nationalism. One of the reasons for his strong differences with his Moderate colleagues was the exclusionary character of the Nationalist campaign that flourished at their behest. An in-depth analysis of the argument not only supports the contention that he foresaw the rise of ‘mass nationalism’ in the days to come but also conveyed that it was possible once the Nationalists succeeded in bringing the masses in favour of the campaign that was emancipatory, not merely in a political sense but also its wider senses. If the argument is stretched a little, one is persuaded to claim that in many ways, Aurobindo carved a Nationalist discourse, which Gandhi and his colleagues upheld politically when they challenged the British; also, when he clamoured for a platform free from division around the axes of religion, caste and ethnicity, he provided Rabindranath Tagore with enough insights to articulate his distinct views of humanity. As the above statement unequivocally underlines, Aurobindo was not in favour of exclusionary politics on any count. For him, the Hindus were as integral to the Nationalist campaign as the Muslims; the Brahmans were as critical as the untouchables; the tribals remained as important partners in the Nationalist struggle as the non-tribals. His model is one of an inclusive platform that rested on his understanding of India as a kaleidoscope of multiple socio-cultural behavioural traits linked with the socialisation of individuals in different geographical locations of the country. So, the conventional charge, based on a deliberate misinterpretation of Aurobindo’s politico-ideological priorities, was vacuous and misdirected to create misinformation. There is, however, a caveat to the argument made by Aurobindo which is equally critical to understand his politico-ideological preferences. Here too, he made his point at two levels: at a more mundane level, he was insistent on an inclusive or composite nationalism which he articulated by designing a space where people with diverse sociocultural views and backgrounds congregated; at an emotional level, he, however, added a qualification. In principle, as he suggested, everybody was welcome to contribute to the Nationalist goal. In practice, however, it was not without condition. In his words, the only qualification [the new nationalist campaign] asks for is a body made in the womb of an Indian mother, a heart that can feel for India, a brain that can and plan for her greatness, a tongue that can adore her name or hands that can fight in her quarrel; the old shunned sacrifice and suffering, the new rushes to embrace it; the old gave a wide berth to the jail and the rods and scourges of Power; the new walks straight to meet them; the old shuddered at the idea of revolution; the new is ready to set the whole country in turmoil for the sake of an idea; the old bent the knee to Caesar and presented

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Aurobindo him a list of grievances; the new leaves his presence or dragged back to it, stands erect and defies him in the midst of his legions. (1106)

While elaborating on the characteristics of revolutionary nationalism in contrast with Moderate nationalism, Aurobindo was curt and very straightforward in condemning the earlier Nationalist campaign. It was a nationalism that inculcated a sense of pride by being born and raised in a great country like India. What was thus required to be created was a mindset appreciative of India’s glory. His conceptualisation of the country as Mother, which, being alien to the Muslim’s ideational universe, was a source of challenge to his idea of inclusive nationalism. Two reasons may be cited: on the one hand, he was aware that Muslims were not willing partners in the Swadeshi campaign, perhaps due to its alleged ‘Hinduised’ character; his apprehension was not unfounded since the available literature corroborated what he felt (Sarkar 2010). On the other hand, with the formation of the Muslim League as the Muslims’ mouthpiece, it was beyond suspicion that Muslims had nurtured different agendas which gradually became clearer as history progressed. Nonetheless, what Aurobindo suggested was a new model in contrast with the erstwhile Moderate vision of nationalism. In order to further defend the argument provided by Bipin Chandra Pal (one of the Lal-Bal-Pal trio) is pertinent. According to him, ‘our history is the sacred biography of the Mother. Our philosophies are the revelations of the Mother’s mind. Our arts, our poetry and our painting, our music, our drama, our architecture and our sculpture, all these are the outflow of the Mother’s diverse emotional moods and experiences.’7 Reverberating the claims of Aurobindo, another important ideologue of revolutionary nationalism raised the same voice in his appreciation for Mother which was not just an image, but a source of sustained inspiration. Here, both of them realised that perhaps the appeal for service to the Mother was likely to be effective under those circumstances when the nation was in slumber. Following Pal’s emphasis on Mother as a source of reawakening, Aurobindo expanded his point by insisting that ‘the Mother had revealed herself. Once that vision has come to a people, there can be no rest, no peace, no farther slumber till the temple has been made ready, the image installed and sacrifice offered. A great nation which has had that vision can never again bend its neck in subjection to the yoke of a conqueror.’8 So, one can fairly argue that in the conceptualisation of revolutionary nationalism, the imagery of Mother constituted an important aspect which was also a source of discomfort to many of his colleagues, perhaps due to their apprehension that it was likely to estrange the

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Muslims. Nonetheless, there is no denying that the Revolutionary Nationalist endeavour at inculcating reverence to Mother created a new zeal among the Nationalists, especially those who were generally politico-ideologically baptised in the Revolutionary Nationalist mould. It was thus declared by Aurobindo that ‘an all-absorbing passion for the Mother and service to her … generated a patriotic fervour [that] … has worked miracles and saves a doomed nation’ (640). Following this line of Revolutionary Nationalist argument, one is thus persuaded to conclude that ‘the reawakening of the nation was believed to have occurred when its children were blessed with a revelation – the magical vision of the Mother’.9 It was not a mere ‘cultural artefact’,10 as an analyst argued; it was not just imagery; it appeared to have acquired a distinct mode of expression with the tremendous power of galvanising the masses against the odds. Hence, Bankim remained an important source of ideological inspiration to Aurobindo. What attracted him most was Bankim’s preaching of ‘the gospel of fearless strength and force’ (639) which was needed not only to counter the British hegemony but also to expose the serious limitations of the mendicant politics of the Moderates. What was the way out of this humiliating existence? Aurobindo, being a man of action, suggested that ‘the initial condition of recovering our liberty meant a peril and a gigantic struggle from the very possibility of which we averted our eyes in a panic of bourgeois terror’ (1107). Being aware that the future was uncertain and yet without sacrifice, the Revolutionary Nationalist goal remained distant, he further argued that a people true to itself, a race that hopes to live, will not comfort itself and sap its manhood by the opiate of empty formulas and specious falsehoods; it will prefer eternal suffering and disaster. For, in truth, as our old thinkers used always to insist [that it] … is the root and condition of life and to believe a lie, to live in a lie, is to deliver oneself to disease and death.11

Three points deserve attention here: first, being one who was conscious of India’s rich intellectual heritage, that he drew inspiration from the past was obvious. Here, in this statement, he refers to the belief the past thinkers talked about while carving a new narrative of human existence; second, as one of the most important ideologues of revolutionary nationalism, he always insisted that without being involved in a direct battle with the colonisers, it was difficult, if not impossible, to wrest India’s political freedom. We must add a caveat—unlike Rabindranath Tagore and Gandhi, Aurobindo did not appear to have paid much attention to the eradication of socio-cultural prejudices which also acted

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to the detriment of India’s rise as a well-knit collectivity. Nevertheless, in his essay, ‘The Bourgeois and the Samurai’, published in Bande Mataram, he reiterated the need to cultivate togetherness by eradicating the socio-cultural differences among the Indians (1091–1108). Finally, like Gandhi, who always privileged truth over anything else, Aurobindo was confident that British rule was contrary to the universal truth of humanity being One. With his scathing criticism of the bourgeois who thrived on British patronage, he devised a new design of freedom struggle which was diametrically opposite to the one that prevailed at the aegis of the Moderates. The most sought-after objective for him was to emancipate India from the clutches of colonialism for which what was required was selfless sacrifice. Hence, death was preferred to submission to a foreign ruler which the bourgeois Nationalists, à la Moderates, never endorsed. So long as the bourgeois dominated the Indian political scene, it was far from being realised. Hence, for that to happen, ‘the middle class must’, according to Aurobindo, must by a miracle be transfigured and lifted above itself; the natural breeding ground of the bourgeois, it must become the breeding ground of the Samurai. It must cease in fact to be a middle class and turn into an aristocracy, an aristocracy not of birth or landed possessions, not of intellect, not of wealth and commercial enterprise, but of character and action [which will help India] recover her faculty for self-sacrifice, courage and high aspiration. (1108)

Fundamental here is Aurobindo’s insistence on a creative blending of ideas derivative of both indigenous and Western discourses, as the Japanese Samurai tradition epitomised. What was sadly missing in the wake of the British patronage of the bourgeois mindset was selfconfident individuals who were, for the sake of the nation, willing to make supreme sacrifice. It was strange for him to think how Indians who were intellectually enriched since time immemorial, became servile and adopted the bourgeois mode of existence. He appeared to have been clueless although he explained the origin of the bourgeois mindset by reference to a relatively peaceful life despite being governed by foreign rulers. The rise and consolidation of revolutionary nationalism was a powerful declaration of the arrival of a new set of ideas capable of reawakening a nation in slumber. Hence, Aurobindo summarised his contention by welcoming the Samurai mindset with the rejection of its bourgeois counterpart when he emphasised that the new Nationalism is an attempt at a spiritual transformation of the nineteenth century Indian; it is a notice of dismissal or at least of suspension to the bourgeois and all his ideas and ways and works,

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a call for men who will dare and do impossibilities, the men of extremes, the men of faith, the prophets, the martyrs, the crusaders, the rebels, desperate venturers and reckless doers, the initiators of revolutions; it is the rebirth of India in Samurai tradition. (1108)

Aurobindo’s politico-ideological priorities represented a complete break with the past in the sense that he, being disappointed with the mendicant nationalism of the Moderates, designed a new Nationalist voice which took into account India’s past intellectual heritage and also what he learnt by being in England while trying for being recruited in the Indian Civil Services. The essay, ‘The Bourgeois and the Samurai’ is an explicit statement of how he conceptualised Indian nationalism, which, he thought, was a policy of appeasement of the rulers that his predecessors championed. By resorting to the metaphors, bourgeois and Samurai, he clarified his stance as a Nationalist ideologue. Underlying his criticism of the brutalities of the Raj, there was also a fierce critique of the Indians who preferred to surrender to the British for exclusive personal benefits. Gandhi, in his Hind Swaraj (1909), made the same claim when he said that the colonisers are not in India because of their strength, but because we keep them [although] … when they came, they had not the slightest intention at that time of establishing a kingdom; they originally came for purposes of trade. Who assisted the Company’s officer? Who was tempted at the sight of their silver? Who bought their goods? History testifies that we did all this. In order to become rich all at once we welcomed the Company’s officers with open arms. We assisted them.12

The argument is identical: what Aurobindo stated in his essay in Bande Mataram, Gandhi reiterated in Hind Swaraj. Even their approach to nationalism did not seem to be radically different. It is true that Aurobindo did not favour non-violence like Gandhi, although his explanation for the continuity of the Raj appeared to have followed nearly the same path. For instance, both Aurobindo and Gandhi attributed the sustenance of the empire to the spontaneous support that the Indians extended, which the former characterised as bourgeois mentality. Hence, in order to effectively counter the mindset, both of them suggested a new mode of education which inculcated a sense of pride in being an Indian. Gandhi’s Naye Talim was an articulation of such a mission. As shown in the chapter on Aurobindo and Education (Chapter 4), Aurobindo had the same concern. The British government evolved a system of learning for their own sake which was not at all directed to educate the learners in the real sense of the term; the system was refined to make it useful for British governance in India. Similarly,

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as Aurobindo pointed out, the British traders never wanted Indians to be ‘the captains of industry, but small shopkeepers and big middlemen who would help British trade to conquer and keep India under its thumb’ (745). Under no circumstances was the British rule accepted by Aurobindo and his Revolutionary Nationalist colleagues who also endorsed his concerns. In view of the aims, revolutionary nationalism can easily be said to have ushered in an era of change when anti-British sentiments were articulated in forms which were inconceivable in the Moderate phase of Indian nationalism. It was a sea change in India’s political history during British rule, and Aurobindo was one of the chief architects.

New Nationalism The earlier detailed discussion underlines how ‘New Nationalism’ emerged by being sternly critical of British hegemony and the bourgeois nationalism that flourished in the wake of Moderate nationalism. As defined earlier, according to Aurobindo, the new nationalism … is a negation of the old bourgeois ideals of the nineteenth century; it is an attempt to relegate the dominant bourgeois in us to his old obscurity, to transform the bourgeois into the Samurai and through him to extend the workings of the Samurai spirit to the whole nation; or, … it is an attempt to create a new nation in India by reviving in spirit and action ancient Indian character, the strong, great and lofty spirit of Aryavarta, and setting it to use and mould the methods and materials of modernity for the freedom, greatness and well-being of a historic and immortal people.13

Although at the cost of repetition, it is re-emphasised here that Aurobindo was conscious of the fact, like Gandhi, that India was colonised not exactly by the British might but with the help of Indians who held different opinions vis-à-vis the conqueror. A servile mindset which he explained as a bourgeois mindset was responsible for the continuity of the Raj in India, felt Aurobindo. With the failure of the Moderate Nationalists to emerge as a champion of the indigenous socio-economic and political interests, Revolutionary Nationalists emerged by the end of the 19th century and continued to shape the Nationalist campaign till the appearance of Gandhi as a supreme leader with a mode of campaign drawing exclusively on non-violence. Before the inauguration of the Gandhian phase in Indian nationalism, it was Aurobindo and his Revolutionary Nationalist colleagues who created

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a common template for the Nationalist cause; although it was not as widely spread as the Gandhian campaign, it had its expanse beyond the metropolitan cities of Calcutta and Bombay. While explaining the reason for spreading the tentacles of nationalism, Aurobindo stated that the Nationalists were united by a common faith and a common spirit; a common faith in India, not in an Anglicized and transmogrified nation unrecognizable as Indians, but in India of the immortal past, India of the clouded but fateful present, India leonine, mighty, crowned with her imperial diadem of the future; a common spirit of enthusiasm, hope, the desire to dare and do all things so that our vision of her future may be fulfilled greatly and soon. (1110)

As an ideologue of New Nationalism, Aurobindo noticed radical changes in the texture of the campaign against the British rulers which meant, on the one hand, the inability of the Moderates to guide the vengeance of the Nationalists to its logical conclusion, and, on the other, the rise of a collectivity which was conscious of its indigenous roots. It was his responsibility, as an ideologue, to remove the misconception about those championing the Revolutionary Nationalist cause. Like the rulers, many of the Indians were happy with the label of Revolutionary Nationalists being Extremists since they resorted to violence and passive resistance simultaneously by ascertaining the applicability of these modes in specific circumstances. So, New Nationalism was a representation of a voice that was stifled by the rulers and also the Moderates. Having realised that, with the expansion of its influence, New Nationalism became a force that gained momentum and hence, ‘cannot be dismissed so easily. It was a force’, argued Aurobindo, which has shaken the whole of India, trampled the traditions of a century into a refuse of irrecoverable fragments and set the mightiest of modern empires groping in a panic for weapons strong enough to meet a new and surprising danger, must have some secret strength and therefore of truth in it which is worth knowing. (1111)

This was a prefacing remark made by Aurobindo before setting out the contour of New Nationalism which was characterised as Extremist in the official lexicon; the bourgeois Indians held the same view since their mode of thinking followed the same trajectory. Being aware that it was a British ploy to scuttle the new Nationalist zeal, Aurobindo appeared on the scene and wrote a long essay showing that the attempt to equate revolutionary nationalism or New Nationalism with Extremism was deliberately done out of fear of both rulers and their minions.

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In order to address the concerns of those who did not appear to be sure of the nature and texture of New Nationalism as an ideological strand, Aurobindo candidly expressed that extremism in the sense of unreasoning violence of spirit and preference of desperate methods … is not the heart of [New] Nationalism. The Nationalist is no advocate of lawlessness for its own sake, [contrarily] he has a deeper respect for the essence of law than anyone else, because the building up of a nation is his objective and he knows well that with a profound reverence for law national life cannot persist and attain a sound and healthy development. But he qualifies his respect for legality by the proviso that the law he is called upon to obey is the law of the nation, an outgrowth of its organic existence and part of its own accepted system of government. A law imposed from outside can command only the interested obedience of those whose chief demand from life is the safety of their persons and property or the timid obedience of those who understand the danger of breaking the law. (1112)

The above explanation is crystal clear. New Nationalism was a new ideological expression representing nationalism in a new light. Unlike the Moderates who enjoyed being subservient, New Nationalists were ready to disobey the alien governance as it was contrary to the will of the governed; it was clearly a design prepared by the foreign rulers to gain at the cost of the Indians. Hence, Indians had every reason to violate the laws which, instead of protecting the interests of the ruled, were tools to support the unjust mode of governance by the alien rulers. The first part of the argument perhaps allows us to think that Aurobindo spoke in a liberal-constitutional language, while the second part was an articulation of a voice which was an open challenge to the system of administration that flourished in the wake of British rule. The argument was forcefully made when Aurobindo further stated that New Nationalism refuses to accept Law as a fetish or peace and security as an aim in themselves; the only idol of its worship is Nationality and the only aim in itself it recognizes is the freedom, power and well-being of the nation. It will not prefer violent or strenuous methods simply because they are violent or strenuous, but neither will it cling to mild and peaceful methods simply because they are mild and peaceful. It asks of a method whether it is effective for its purpose, whether it is worthy of a great people struggling to be, whether it is educative of national strength and activity, and these things ascertained, its asks nothing farther. (1112)

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Here, Aurobindo was candid as his defending argument suggests. A New Nationalist was obedient to the law provided it safeguarded the interests of the hapless and the needy; if it was otherwise, he was justified in defying the law. Implicit here is the contention that since the rulers’ laws were discriminatory, the New Nationalists had reasons to challenge them; otherwise, they failed in their duties as New Nationalists. As soon as the laws deviated from being equal to all, they needed to be vehemently opposed. As soon as laws were there to torture the ruled, they were to be fiercely countered. As regards challenging the unjust laws, the New Nationalists devised their methods with reference to whether they were effective enough to combat them. Besides seeking to delegitimise the New Nationalists as Extremists, the detractors also condemned them as anarchists and also fanatics, presumably because of their expressed willingness to adopt any means to attain the goal. The idea gained ground because the methods the Nationalists followed were radically different from those of the Moderates. Here, too, Aurobindo had a firm response by saying that the New Nationalist does not love anarchy and suffering, but if anarchy and suffering are the necessary passage to the great consummation he seeks, he is ready to bear them himself, to expose others to them, till the end is reached. He will embrace suffering as a lover and clasp the hand of Anarchy like that of a trusted friend - if so, it must be; for it is not his temper to take the inevitable grudgingly or to serve or struggle with a half a heart. If that is Extremism and fanaticism, he is an Extremist and a fanatic; but not for their own sake, not out of a disordered love for anarchy and turmoil, not in madness and desperation, but out of a reasoned conviction and courageous acceptance of the natural laws that demand this sacrifice in return for so great a promise. (1112)

Aurobindo responded to the accusation in an unambivalent fashion. Since the goal was primary, he did not seem to have bothered about the means, unlike Gandhi, who always privileged means over the ends. The New Nationalist happily resorted to methods—whether violence or passive resistance—provided they were adequate to achieve the goal. By providing such an argument, Aurobindo emphasised that the so-called Extremists never indulged in ‘disorder’ by choice; instead, if they were forced by the circumstances, they would hardly restrain themselves. There are two levels of argument which need attention: at the level of means, Aurobindo remained committed to methods other than violence; at the level of practice, he justified the deployment of any method, including violence, since that helped him successfully pursue

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the goal. Hence, his argument was clear when he mentioned that ‘if he embraces Anarchy, it is the way to good government. If he does not shrink from disorder, there can be no security and without that struggle no peace, except the security of decay and death’ (1113). There is no room for confusion or ambivalence in this argument. What Aurobindo reinforced was the claim that for the attainment of objectives directed to ensure common well-being, the New Nationalists were allowed to adopt any means. The point being made here relates to the nature of the means the Revolutionary Nationalists adopted to fulfil what they deemed appropriate to avoid social decay and the death of innocent individuals since they were colonised by the British. So, the utilisation of means of their choice was useful to achieve what the New Nationalists deemed legitimate from their point of view. Aurobindo repeatedly referred to the issue of means to separate revolutionary nationalism from Moderate nationalism; while the latter opted for liberal-constitutional means since they were bourgeois in their approach to the British rule, the New Nationalists who imbibed the Samurai spirit were scarcely restrained from employing methods which, as per them, were necessary to accrue benefit to the colonised and also to harm British interests. Well ahead of Gandhi, it was Aurobindo who devised a plan to involve the masses in the struggle against the foreign rulers. He can thus be claimed to have ushered in a new era in Indian Nationalist history which fully blossomed once Gandhi emerged on India’s political scene.

Conceptualising the Evolution of India as a Polity Aurobindo was one of these rare global thinkers who was also an organic intellectual in the true Gramscian sense for two important reasons: on the one hand, he, while dwelling on specific socio-economic and politico-cultural realities, always provided us with insights which were of help to understand the Nationalist movement and its nature in a new perspective. He was a Nationalist thinker per se at one level; at another, he was perhaps one of those innovative ideologues who perceptively conceptualised ideas with reference to specific ideational preferences. What was also unique in his socio-political ideas was that they also comprised a sharp critique of what he deemed irrelevant and archaic from his point of view and which was argued persuasively in the discourses that he evolved. As one who played a critical role in shaping approaches to Indian nationalism at a critical juncture of the struggle for freedom, he can be said to have developed new parameters of the Nationalist campaign, which was an exclusive domain of the educated middle class, before he rose to prominence on the national

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scene. Historical evidence suggests that with the foundation of the Indian National Congress in 1885, Moderate nationalism appeared and became a dominant force, presumably with the patronage of the British rulers as well. It was also attributed to the apparent lackadaisical attitude of the average Indians towards the struggle that the Moderates launched, probably due to the fact that nobody was able to gauge how devastating the foreign rule was likely to be in the days to come. Here lies the acceptability of those opposed to Moderate nationalism as crusaders to the alien governance; the so-called Nationalist activities they undertook were just an annual affair in the sense that in their annual meeting, the Moderates adopted resolutions to articulate their grievances which they presented to the rulers for redressal. Based on their steadfast commitment to British constitutionalism, they preferred to adopt a reconciliatory approach to the rulers, articulated in the widely publicised methods of prayer, petition and protest. Over time, a section within the Nationalist political platform, the Indian National Congress, realised that Moderate opposition was futile since those who championed Moderate nationalism were hardly anti-British in their approach—they believed that India’s political salvation was possible by being associated with the empire. Opposed to them were the Revolutionary Nationalists led by Lal-Bal-Pal along with their younger colleague Aurobindo Ghose, who was not a political activist like his senior colleagues but a powerful ideologue of New Nationalism or revolutionary nationalism in common parlance. As per Aurobindo, Moderate nationalism was conceptually characterised as mendicant nationalism since its primary agenda was to seek concession by begging or by being a mendicant; their primary aim was to maintain British hegemony, and they were thus restrained from doing what could be a source of embarrassment to the rulers. Contrary to the Moderates, the Revolutionary Nationalists prepared a blueprint to combat the foreign government by deploying methods which were anything but peaceful constitutional-liberal means. In other words, the new group within the National Congress agreed to adopt contrarian means which were likely to help them pursue their politicoideological objectives. As is well documented, the 1907 annual meeting of the Congress held in Surat institutionalised the fissure: revolutionary nationalism emerged as an effective alternative to the Moderates who gradually lost their salience in Indian nationalism. It was evident with the outbreak of the Swadeshi Movement in Bengal (1905–1908) for the revocation of the first partition of the province. The Swadeshi activism ushered in a new era in India’s campaign for political emancipation in two ways: on the one hand, it was the beginning of the rise of a qualitatively different kind of opposition which was contrary to the

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erstwhile methods of challenging the British rule; it was simultaneously a manifestation of the visible decline of the constitutional mode of protest in the context of the Nationalist struggle. While the Moderates hardly attracted the youth, the Revolutionary Nationalists, on the other hand, galvanised them to plunge into action, notwithstanding the adverse consequences. Historically, the Swadeshi campaign was thus a watershed in so far as India’s Nationalist campaign was concerned. The increasing importance of revolutionary nationalism was an outcome of frustration among those who felt that the Moderates were there to appease the alien rulers at the cost of the ruled. This was one of the major reasons for the horizontal split in the Congress since, as the available archival resources demonstrate, many of its members joined hands with the Revolutionary Nationalists, given their opposition to their Moderate counterparts. It will, however, be ahistorical to completely dismiss the contribution made by some of the leading Moderate Nationalists. For instance, Dadabhai Naoroji was one of those creative thinkers who, by identifying the reasons for India’s economic decline under the British tutelage, provided an explanatory model; his Poverty and Un-British Rule in India (1901) provided insights to understand that the British rule, instead of being a source of rejuvenation of the country, had ruined the country by being exploitative from the very beginning. This was reconfirmed by R.C. Dutt who, in his The Economic History of India, echoed the same argument. The purpose here is to emphasise that the Moderates also played a historical role in the Nationalist campaign in the sense that they also conceptualised how the colonisers contributed to India’s poverty. The argument has to be understood at two levels: at the conceptual level, it was useful to comprehend the point that the foreign rule was anything but a means for India’s well-being; at the practical level, the Moderate argument helped their younger colleagues who raised their voice against them for being ‘mendicant’ also to grasp the processes of how their countrymen were ruthlessly exploited by the rulers for their partisan gains. Hence, it is fair to argue that Moderate nationalism laid the foundation of a voice of opposition which, in due course, gained momentum. By being a complete departure from the erstwhile Nationalist campaign, New Nationalism was also a stepping stone for the rise of mass nationalism during the 1920s when Gandhi became the supremo of India’s Nationalist campaign. In view of this, one is also persuaded to argue that the Gandhian mode of nationalism owed its roots to the erstwhile campaign, which also confirms that India’s campaign for political freedom was a continuity since it unfolded in a pattern which was a gradual blossoming of the ideas of opposition to the imposed governance by an alien nation. The argument that the nature of the

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Nationalist campaign changed over time also defends the point that it was context-driven. Hence, it is easy to conceptualise the relatively less assertive Moderate nationalism, more virulent Nationalist counterattack at the aegis of Revolutionary Nationalists and a unique mode of resistance that evolved at the behest of Gandhi who spearheaded a strong non-violent campaign against perhaps the mightiest empire of the 20th century.

Aurobindo’s Intervention By being organically associated with the Nationalist campaign as an ideologue, Aurobindo forcefully argued the continuity thesis by making a careful analytical dissection of India’s past. In order to persuasively make his point, he first laid out the crucial theoretical assumptions that shaped his ideas: first, based on his firm belief in the greatness of Indian civilisation vis-à-vis humanity, he insisted that one should look at the evolution of India as a nation with a rich socio-intellectual heritage. The actual nature of a nation ‘will’, argued Aurobindo, ‘be revealed when we look at the whole and all its parts in the light of a true understanding of the spirit and intention and a close discerning on the actual achievement of the culture’.14 What was emphasised here was his concern for enhancing one’s inner strength which was possible only when one’s mind was inspired by espoused ideals and goals. In Aurobindo’s words, unless one was culturally sensitive to the greatness of India’s civilisation, one was unable to comprehend the purpose of the Nationalist campaign for liberation from foreign hegemony. This provided those participating in the struggle with ‘a rhythm of advance towards high and great ideals’ (385). The second theoretical assumption was lined with the claim that since the ideals that governed the spirit and body of Indian society [were] … of the highest kind, its social order secured an inexpungable basic solidarity, the strong life force that worked in it was creative of extraordinary energy, richness and interests, and the life organized remarkable in its opulence, variety in unity, beauty, productiveness, movement. (385)

Implied here are three important qualities which make a nation great and competitive. One of the first requirements was solidarity; otherwise, the divisive forces raised their ugly faces to not only weaken the human energy but also destroy the foundation leading to solidarity among socio-culturally distinctly textured people. Second, one should also be respectful to one’s socio-cultural roots; only then, one was

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inspired to sacrifice to protect one’s unique existence vis-à-vis others; finally, if one was endowed with these attributes, one became a source of extraordinary creative energy which helped a nation rise as a powerful entity in the comity of nations. After having laid out the fundamental theoretical assumptions, Aurobindo now focused on why India became weak, notwithstanding her rich socio-cultural strength that evolved over centuries. Here, he had a very specific response which was based on his optimistic belief that India’s inner strength was not completely lost; it received a jolt primarily due to reasons connected with her peculiar historical evolution of the past. According to him, there were three reasons: the major reasons were linked to the rise of a section of Indians who nurtured their selfish desires at the cost of the majority. In his opinion, India passed … from the freer type of the primitive Aryan or Vedic social and political organization to a system socially marked by the despotism of the Brahmin theocracy and politically by an absolute monarchy of the oriental, by which is meant the Western Asiatic, type that has remained fixed in those two things for ever after. (386)

Besides being critical of the rise of the absolute monarchical authority in ancient India, Aurobindo, by drawing on the consolidation of the Western Asiatic rule, also highlighted how India became a pawn to the strong. Being opposed to the despotism of the Brahmin theocracy, he also expressed his scathing critique against the role of Brahmans in sustaining the caste schism which was a useful tool for the absolutist rulers to sustain their governance. A conceptually perceptive argument, this was of great help to understand why India failed to maintain her distinctive socio-political framework of governance due largely to a peculiar interplay of socio-economic and politico-cultural forces at a particular juncture of her past. He was also persuaded to believe that democracy was not at all an alien concept in so far as India was concerned, although he qualified his response by also emphasising that its manifestation differed from its Western counterpart: ‘Indian polity and even institutions that present a certain analogy to the parliamentary form … were of India’s own kind and not at all the same thing as modern parliaments and modern democracy’ (386). Based on the idea of kula (belonging to the same genealogical stock), human beings in the past lived as one collectivity, drawing on ‘the equality of all the freeman of the clan or race’ (387). This was a society where one’s professional quality was the prime consideration for one’s particular role in society. Here Aurobindo was perhaps drawing on the core principles on which caste order was founded. This argument was explicitly made when he

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suggested that ‘no profession was … at first hereditary, by [was based on one’s] professional capability, and this was how a society was constituted throughout Aryan India’ (387). Although these assumptions were well known, Aurobindo, by reiterating them, endeavoured to show that the bourgeois mindset evolved due to processes of specific socio-political churnings in India’s past when the Samurai spirit was not allowed to develop, let alone flourish. As argued, Aurobindo understood that the decline of the Samurai spirit was linked to the rise of a peculiar socio-economic and politicocultural milieu which he proved with the reference of India’s evolution as a socio-political entity over generations. According to him, one of the important factors that inhibited the growth of a divisive mindset was related to the battle that Brahmans waged against the monarchs. This was a watershed in Indian history since in the battle what gained precedence was also intrigue and means for gain at others’ cost. In conceptual terms, the bourgeois mindset appeared to have prevailed, and Samurai inclinations seemed to have lost salience. Despite having been given supreme importance in governance, [Brahmans] … in spite of their ever-increasing and finally predominant authority did not and could not usurp in India the political power. As sacrosanct priests and legists and spiritual preceptors of the monarch and the people they exercised a very considerable influence, but the real or active political power remained with the king, the Kshatriya aristocracy and the commons. (388)

In Aurobindo’s view, this was the first of the instances when a bourgeois mindset was encouraged at the cost of the Samurai zeal for two important reasons: first, it was now established that mere loyalty to a kingdom was not always adequate to retain power and authority; one was required to be strategic to fulfil one’s objectives regardless of whether it was morally justified or not. The second consequence was far more disastrous in the sense that now it was not morally or ethically inappropriate to undertake means to undermine, if not destroy, the opponent. For Aurobindo, it was a matter of pain since he was unable to comprehend that despite being a place where democracy evolved, India became a country which allowed contrarian tendencies to thrive. In the midst of situations leading to the consolidation of the bourgeois mindset, there were, however, instances, as Aurobindo hinted, to prove that ‘the republican form of government [appreciative of the Samurai spirit] … asserted its hold and proved itself capable of a strong and settled organization and long duration lasting over many centuries’ (389); he also added a caveat by saying that ‘it is unfortunate that we

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know little of the details of the constitution and nothing of the inner history of these republics’ (389–390). Nonetheless, on the basis of his understanding of India’s past, he made some critical suggestions to protect the Samurai spirit which needed to be inculcated by creating a conducive environment supportive of concerns for humanity in general. What he had in mind was to transform a class in itself into a class for itself which meant that by being loyal to the collectivity, it was expected that individuals were ready to happily sacrifice their own interests since it was meant to serve all regardless of division around the axes of class, caste and ethnicity.

The Systemic Failure The next critical step was to develop a set of mechanisms to create and safeguard the milieu in which the Samurai spirit no longer remained exclusive to a specific set of individuals but became an integral feature of all the constituents of human collectivity. What appears to have intrigued Aurobindo was why India lost her earlier reputation of being gallant and was also a space for generating ideas contributing to human well-being. The answer was not easy to locate felt Aurobindo, given the complex socio-cultural processes that informed her transformation over centuries. The ruler was meant to serve the ruled to their satisfaction while the latter was ready to accept the former as legitimate. The relationship was not of rivalry but symbiotic which explained why governance was free from criticism or attack by the subjects. Aurobindo attributed this to (a) the critical role of dharma or righteous behaviour of the ruler, and (b) the confidence of the ruled being free from autocratic interference by the ruler. Illustrative here was the functioning of the Buddhist councils which always took decisions after open discussion among the members of the councils. The heads of the councils were bound by the decisions which were accepted by all since all were participants in the processes of decision-making. In case of differences of opinion, an attempt was always made to arrive at a consensus; if it failed, the participants continued to work on it till an acceptable decision was made. It was a unique process of shaping views into concrete decisions which meant that a society was governed by all and not by an exclusive group which later became a pattern. The administration was unlikely to be derailed if the king deviated from dharma or righteousness. Hence, it was suggested, as an ancient writer of statecraft, Manu, confirmed, that ‘an unjust and oppressive king should be killed by his own subjects like a mad dog, and this justification’, argued Aurobindo, ‘by the highest authority of the right or even the

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duty of insurrection and regicide in extreme cases is sufficient to show that absolutism or the unconditional divine right of kings was no part of the intention of the Indian political system’ (395). Unlike the nature of monarchy in the rest of the world, under no circumstances did kings in India resort to absolute power as they were governed by dharma and were also monitored by the ruled. Barring exceptions, the ancient system of governance, according to Aurobindo, was never reduced to a mechanism of fulfilling the desire of those wielding power and authority. Hence, ‘the kingship … proved to be in effect moderate, efficient and beneficent, served well the purposes assigned to it and secured an abiding hold on the affections of the people’ (395). This formulation is critical to Aurobindo’s conceptualisation of the distinction between the bourgeois and the Samurai. By being sensitive and respectful to the subjects, the kings were rooted in the prevalent socio-economic and politico-cultural reality. Imbibing the Samurai spirit, the kings were equally alert to their responsibilities to the ruled which was possible since they were rooted in the same historical contexts. Basic here is the point that there was an emotional chord with their subjects, and the kings while governing them remained committed to the ideals of kingship; in case they failed, the subjects had the authority not only to dismiss but also to kill the kings, if necessary. Fundamental here is the reiteration of the argument that democracy was not just vox populi but bestowed authority on the demos in case the rulers deviated from their assigned tasks. By insisting on these two important features of how ancient polity was governed, Aurobindo questioned the claim that liberal democracy evolved in the West; on the other hand, he challenged the claim of the Moderates that by indoctrinating Indians into liberal beliefs, they were introducing completely new conceptual modes of collective existence. In opposition to the Moderate assumption that the machinery of governance drawn on liberal democracy was perfect to take India forward, Aurobindo vehemently opposed by saying that a perfect system of governance was linked to the spiritual strength of the people to adopt, in its true spirit, the core ideas of liberal constitutionalism. Implicit here was also his critique of the Enlightenment principles which the Moderates claimed to have been influenced by, although, in reality, the British rulers happily abdicated them to justify activities contrary to the foundational beliefs of Enlightenment philosophy. Furthermore, Enlightenment also involved spiritualist concerns for humanity, which was also happily ignored by the rulers and the Moderates who never took into account the role of spiritualism which was one of the foundational pillars of Indian civilisation. It was explicitly stated by Aurobindo when he mentioned that ‘the true nature of Indian polity can only be realized

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if we look at it not as a separate thing, a machinery independent of the rest of the mind and life of the people, but as a part of and in its relations to the organic totality of the social existence’ (396). While elaborating on the argument, Aurobindo further argued that the stronger the spiritual health of the community, the safer the collectivity despite occasional hiccups in its existence. This was a mechanism which not only sustained the collectivity but also generated ‘an eternal spirit that expresses itself in Time and on earth [contributing to] … the fulness of humanity through the vicissitudes of the human cycles’. Two factors were critical in Aurobindo’s understanding of humanity as a well-knit multitude: first, the sense of belonging which allowed individuals to comprehend the dialectical interconnection between them and the collectivity; second, the idea that individuals flourished not as a unit but as a part of a unit which was the vehicle for self-gratification of the constituents. This was ‘a master idea’ according to Aurobindo because it helped build a bridge among the socio-culturally disparate individuals or communities which was also a stepping stone ‘for man’s ascent from the ignorant natural into the spiritual existence’ (397). It was difficult for the Westerners, as per Aurobindo, to understand this since they were products of a different socio-economic and politico-cultural milieu. Intrinsic here was his stern criticism of Moderate nationalism since there was no room for the ideas to flourish as it drew uncritically on the Western discourses which were not, at all, organically linked to the Indian ecosystem. Core to Aurobindo’s socio-political thought was his concern for indigenous politico-cultural values that evolved in India over centuries. Along with his emphasis on this aspect of his argument, he also focused on the evolution of Indian polity with reference to socio-cultural churnings shaping its nature. According to him, there are three stages of this process: first, a system of belief emerged by ‘intuitively’ taking into account the importance of being together as an important principle for the growth of a community, which was believed to be a template for common well-being. It was perhaps not an outcome of conscious decisions, since, as Aurobindo argued, ‘it does not try to govern its whole communal existence by the reasoning will, but lives according to its vital intuitions or their first mental renderings’ (399). Implicit here was the belief that as human beings, they instinctively imbibed ‘togetherness’ as perhaps the best option for survival amid uncertainties. Hence, the second stage of the evolution of Indian polity led to the growth and consolidation of ‘communal ideas, needs, institutions in the light of the developed intelligence and finally by the power of the critical and constructive reason’ (399). There were two important outcomes in this stage of evolution which also explained how Indian polity had a natural

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space for the Samurai spirit. First, in this stage, human beings realised the significance of working together which, they felt, was critical to their consolidation as a well-knit community. Furthermore, it also meant that the constituents of the community realised that they did not merely exist as a single unit but as an integral part of the collectivity which upheld the interests of all. In Aurobindo’s explanation, the emergence of high and luminous ideas which promise to raise man beyond the limits of the vital being, beyond his first social, economic and political needs and desires and out of their customary moulds and inspire an impulse of bold experiment with the communal life which opens a field of possibility for the realization of a more and more ideal society. (399)

Critical here is the point that for individuals to survive and attain a trouble-free existence, what was required was the rise and strengthening of a mindset seeking to ensure the common good. It was possible, argued Aurobindo, once those who formed the collectivity valued the importance of being together as perhaps the only means to ensure what they accepted as appropriate for the fulfilment of their goals and objectives. This was a critical stage when humanity reached a higher stage of development which was possible, Aurobindo adumbrated, when man’s attempt to reach and abide by the law of the spiritual existence is no longer an exceptional aim for individuals or else degraded in its more general aspiration to the form of a popular religion, but is recognized and followed out as the imperative need of his being and its true and right attainment the necessity of the next step in the evolution of the race. (401)

Reverberating the claim that spiritual strength was most critical to the rise of a strong nation, Aurobindo defended his argument that it evolved naturally in different phases of his evolution from a simple to a complex polity. As the aforementioned point clearly states ‘spiritual commitment to the member[s] of the community’ did not develop all of a sudden or automatically—it needed to be inculcated with efforts tuned to the objectives. The concern for all did not develop instinctively; but, once it struck organic roots in the prevalent socio-economic and politicocultural milieu, it became an integral part of the mindset of those being part of the collectivity. According to Aurobindo, this was the major contribution of the ancient thinkers who, by decoding the complex processes of human evolution, established that liberal constitutionalism, which emerged along with the consolidation of concerns for all, was not alien to Indian civilisation; in fact, it had a long past. Pursuing this line

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of thought, Aurobindo’s purpose was to dismiss the rulers’ claim that Indians needed to be ‘civilised’, and hence, colonialism was a boon in disguise. Based on this belief, he elaborated his point by underlining that the right order of human life as of the universe is preserved according to the ancient idea [emphasizing that] each individual being following faithfully his Swadharma (one’s own set of communitycentric activities), the true law and norm of his nature and the nature of his kind and by the group being, the organic collective life, doing likewise.15

What is emphasised here is also the importance of a mechanism for developing and consolidating a mindset, tuned to the protection of the collectivity. The key idea here, in other words, is that individuals by themselves are not adequate to contribute to their well-being unless they are united by a common purpose. Based on this conceptual belief, Aurobindo elaborated on the stages of the development of Indian polity. As he mentioned, the gradual evolution of ideas drawing on the concerns for one another led to the formation of ‘organic group beings that evolve their own dharma and to follow it is the condition of their preservation, healthy continuity and sound action’ (403). Emphasised here was also the claim that ‘group beings’ were independent in following their dharma so long as it did not harm the collectivity. The unity was not imposed, but evolved by being respectful to the distinct character of group beings which Aurobindo explained was largely due to peculiar historical churnings. Hence, he mentioned that the Indian polity was the system of a very complex communal freedom and self-determination, each group unit of the community having its own natural existence and administering its own proper life and business … but connected with the whole by wellunderstood relations, each a copartner with the others in the powers and duties of the communal existence, executing its own laws and rules, administering within its own proper limits, joining with the others in the discussion and the regulation of matters of a mutual or common interest and represented in some way and to the degree of its importance in the general assemblies of the kingdom or empire. (405)

Distinct here are three important pillars of Aurobindo’s socio-political ideas: first, he based his argument on the claim that India as it became later was an offshoot of long-drawn processes which were manifested in her peculiar socio-economic and politico-cultural texture. As India

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represented a kaleidoscope of cultures, it was conceptually impossible to conceive of India as one in the sense that European nations were understood. Second, despite being socio-culturally separate, India was perhaps a rare collectivity which never created conditions in which the constituents were forced to merge by simply rescinding their distinct cultural traits. In the case of European nations, it was impossible to conceptualise them as a tapestry of multiple cultures since they were born by totalising the cultural identities of the individuals. Hence, it was also a serious issue among the New Nationalists when the Moderates sought to conceptualise India in the derivative Western mode of thinking. Finally, regardless of visible and well-maintained socio-cultural diversities, India remained one primarily because there was an underlying thread of unity which Aurobindo explained as ‘wellunderstood values and mores cutting across geographical boundaries’ (405). From these well-understood values and mores, Indian polity drew its sustenance. Here was located the core of Aurobindo’s argument in defence of Indian polity which was finely tuned to the Indian socio-economic realities. Conceptually, the idea was most useful in capturing how Indian polity developed and how it was different from the imposed colonial rule which was an attempt to homogenise governance in accordance with the derivative wisdom governing the alien rulers. A careful reading of Aurobindo’s analysis reveals that there are two intertwined aspects in his argument: on the one hand, his purpose was to locate the mechanism nurtured over centuries in India which persuasively explained, on the other, why the derivative liberal constitutionalism of the Western variety was simply inappropriate. In contrast, the Indian polity as constructed historically over the ages provided a macro model with emphasis on human needs at the micro levels as well. The models entailed, as argued by Aurobindo, a complex of communal freedom and self-determination with a supreme coordinating authority, a sovereign person and body, armed with efficient powers, position and prestige, but limited to its proper rights and functions, at once controlling and controlled by the rest, admitting them as its active copartners in all branches, sharing the regulation and administration of the communal existence. (406)

The previous description by Aurobindo suggests that Indian polity epitomised a democratic form of governance in nature and spirit. There was a sovereign who remained committed to the demos since they held the actual authority. As mentioned above, if the monarch failed to discharge his duties for protecting the governed, there were provisions in the ancient constitutional design for the killing of a deviant ruler, if necessary. The authority was bound by the well-understood values

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and mores which were transmitted from one generation to another. Critical to Aurobindo’s views was an emphasis that the imposed alien governance was contrary to the ideas on which Indian polity was founded and continued over centuries, presumably because it was a template for safeguarding the interests of the populace per se. As one who was sensitive to the historical processes, Aurobindo also raised a question by asking when and why Indian polity collapsed at a particular juncture of history. He was not sure whether it happened following the Muslim invasion of India. This is a very critical point to dismiss the accusation that he blamed the Muslims for destroying the distinct Indian mode of thinking; he made the categorical statement that it was difficult to prove that the nature of the truly democratic Indian polity underwent a sea change with the takeover of India by the Muslim invaders. Here, too, instead of pinpointing the date of collapse, he focused on the processes responsible for the decay and final disappearance of Indian polity because it lost its salience due to the peculiar interplay of socioeconomic and politico-cultural factors attacking the foundational ideas on which it emerged. By seeking to explain the downfall of Indian polity, Aurobindo thus argued that any collapse of the system at the top leaving a gulf between the royal government, which would grow more autocratic by its isolation and in sole control of the larger national affairs, and the other constituents of the socio-political body each carrying its own internal affairs, as was to the end the case with village communities … [and] the public assemblies which existed but did not have the authority which they had in the past.16

The decadence and the final dissolution of Indian polity were thus not just due to Muslim takeover but also an outcome of a combination of factors which created a milieu in which it was hardly as acceptable as in the past. An analytical dissection of Aurobindo’s text directs our attention to the complex socio-economic and politico-cultural processes that finally culminated in the replacement of Indian polity with an alien system of governance. What can be surmised is the fact that despite not having identified the Muslim invasion as responsible for the collapse of Indian polity, Aurobindo acknowledged that it was undoubtedly a triggering factor which acted decisively, given the weaknesses of the authority for the failure to sustain the erstwhile system of governance championing an organic link between the ruler and the ruled. The root of this collapse was sociological, as Aurobindo felt. According to him, the process started with the disintegration of the joint family which was one of the first constituents of communal life. How they contributed to communal life was explained by Aurobindo when he stated that

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of the two principles—(a) communal holding of land and undivided communal life under the management of the head of the family, and (b) the claim of each male to an equal portion in the share of his father, a portion due to him in case of separation and division of the estate—were of tremendous help in generating commonality among the people being united under such a system of family. By drawing on the functioning of the Buddhist dharma sangha which created a system of collective existence by adhering to all the rules, features and values of dharma, Aurobindo forcefully argued that so long as this was the case, the sangha survived even in adverse circumstances; the decay was visible once the in-charge of each sangha preferred to assert his authority independent of the dharma sangha. Conceptually, the point corresponds with what he stated earlier when he provided an explanatory model for comprehending why Indian polity did not survive due to its failure to sustain communal life—an important factor in its continuity over many generations.

The Failed Polity Aurobindo’s detailed discussion of Indian polity is most perceptive for two reasons; on the one hand, it helps us understand how he viewed Indian polity that thrived as a system of governance over centuries; on the other hand, it also provides us with a probable explanation for its decay and collapse at the end. It should also be noted that the text was not, at all, propagandistic, but an analytical account of the rise, consolidation and downfall of Indian polity despite being a pioneer in many respects. In a four-part text, Aurobindo devoted the first two parts to highlight how Indian polity developed and flourished and the other two to how it disintegrated into an instrument of misrule. What deserves appreciation was his attention to the details and the historical context which accounted for the consolidation and later the complete breakdown of the system of governance. While seeking to explain the rise of ‘an admirable political system efficient in the highest degree and very perfectly combining communal self-government with stability and order’ (423), Aurobindo stated that it was possible because ‘the state carried on its work – administrative, judicial, financial and protective – without destroying or encroaching on the rights and free activities of the people and its constituent bodies responsible for discharging specific functions’ (423). Clarified here are reasons which are explicitly stated by him. He attributed the continuity of Indian polity to strictly adhering to dharma which meant that the state kept itself confined to the assigned duties without infringing on those areas which were clearly

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out of its domain. As a monitor responsible for maintaining an efficient system of administration, the state did not interfere with the religious liberty or the established economic and social life of the nation; it confined itself to the maintenance of social order and the provision of a needed supervision, support, coordination and facilities for the rich and powerful functioning of all national activities.… In the person of monarch, it was the dignified and powerful head and in the system of his administration the supreme instrument – neither an arbitrary autocracy or bureaucracy, nor a machine oppressing or replacing life – of a great and stable civilization and free and living people. (423)

Most succinctly written, the above statements are also self-explanatory. Fundamental here was the concern that those who managed the state were expected to be morally sensitive to the ruled; they, by being endowed with legitimate authority, were not allowed to undertake activities which were strictly partisan or discriminatory. Reverberating Montesquieu’s insistence on the division of power into three— executive, legislative and judicial—Aurobindo drew our attention to the fact that long before the French philosopher, Montesquieu (1689–1755) who evolved a persuasive model of separation of powers, the idea gained ground in the functioning of the state in India. The analogy may not appear to be appropriate since Montesquieu dealt with governance in a complex society while Aurobindo concentrated on how the state functioned in a less complex environment. Nonetheless, the point deserved attention since it highlighted the idea of separation of powers, though in its incipient form, because once the authority was demarcated and the wielder of authority was respectful of this, many of the tedious problems regarding governance were likely to be contained satisfactorily. While the elaboration of how Indian polity upheld the espoused ideals of governance was most instructive, Aurobindo’s discussion of how it collapsed was equally persuasive. Concentrating on why Indian polity was weakened and finally wrecked, he argued that the emergence of a deviant mindset insisting on the establishment of the hegemony of one set of cultural values accounted for the cracks in the polity which gradually became a crater of a volcano. Comparing the existence of nations in Europe as a well-knit collectivity due to socio-cultural compatibility, he further suggested an explanation of the fragmentation of Indian polity in the peculiar mentality of the people manifested in endeavours for championing exclusive goals at the cost of humanity at large. By creatively blending both the internal and external sources of

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disruption which finally led to the erosion of commonality, Aurobindo argued that ‘the ancient mind of India … respected every existing regional and communal liberty, … that effected a synthesis of her life and not a mechanical oneness’.17 The situation, however, underwent changes due to the consolidation of ideas dismissing the oneness as an impediment to the progress of people belonging to a specific sociocultural zone which he captured by saying that the conditions under which humanity evolved as one … [and] found true means and form and basis, disappeared and there was instead an attempt to establish a single administrative empire. The endeavour, dictated by the pressure of an immediate and external necessity failed to achieve its complete success … [because] it followed a trend that was not eventually compatible with the true turn of the Indian spirit [which ran contrary to] … the underlying principle of the Indian politico-social system [that] was a synthesis of communal autonomies, the autonomy of the village, of the town and capital city, of the caste, guild family, religious community, religious unit. (432)

Critical here was the claim that the autonomy of groups united around certain distinct inherent characteristics (like caste, religion or region) was one of the significant driving forces in cementing a bond provided they were respected and protected. A pan-Indian empire was neither endowed with this mindset nor had concerns for the maintenance of these distinctive identities of the ruled which partly explained why it was difficult for a centralised administration to succeed. History repeated itself: the Pathans and Mughals buckled with the rise of counterforces as history demonstrates. The core point here is an axiomatic truth, emphasised by Aurobindo, namely, the mere application of coercive force was not adequate to rule the ruled in India. What was emphasised here was also the weaknesses of the pan-Indian British Empire since it forcefully established its hegemony by completely disregarding the importance of being respectful of the socio-political characteristics of the people in regions. By drawing on historical evidence, he further argued that ‘the earlier imperial systems of the Pathans and Mughals suffered more than their predecessors … from the evils of centralization owing to their autocratic character and were constantly breaking down … due to their inability to comprehend the inherent weaknesses of an artificial unitarian regime’. They were unable to address the weaknesses of their uncritical faith in their ability to crush opposition by force, which, however, accelerated the pace of their disintegration. It happened so, because, according to Aurobindo, these regimes failed to develop ‘true, living and free relation with the life of the people [for which] …

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they were unable to create the common patriotism which would have effectively secured them against foreign invader’ (434). Emphasised here were the distinct socio-cultural characteristics of the people of India that needed to be kept in mind to comfortably govern the country. As the empires that flourished at the behest of the Pathans and Mughals failed to appreciate this aspect of India’s civilisational ethos, they disappeared and were replaced by the British, following the defeat of the Indian forces by their British counterparts. Reiterated here is the core conceptual format that Aurobindo developed while seeking to explain the weaknesses that appeared to have been misconstrued as ‘permanent’; not only did he question this assumption by persuasively setting out his arguments in favour of the preparation of the Samurai mentality, Aurobindo devised a powerful conceptual alternative in defence of his claim. The task was difficult, but not impossible since Indians had, at their possession, the capabilities of being Samurais who happily made supreme sacrifices for the cause they fought for. Here, Aurobindo addressed two of his concerns at two complementary levels: at the rather worldly level, by insisting that fighting for a cause was nobler than anything else, his optimistic comments were directed to generate a common zeal for a struggle for fulfilling Nationalist aspirations; at the perceptive level, he confidently argued that with the consolidation of such a mindset, there was nothing impossible to achieve. So, the analogy with Samurai was not just an attempt to create inspiring imagery, but an endeavour to replace the lackadaisical and servile Nationalist attitude during the British rule. Unless Indians succeeded in creating such a milieu, the future of the Nationalist agitation did not appear to be as bright as the Nationalists thought. Along with his argument for the development of a changed ecosystem, Aurobindo also went deeply into the reasons why the centralised system of governance was bound to fail. Hence, he put forward his argument in a rather complex way since first he dealt with the consequences of centralisation of administration which resulted in the alienation of the governed from the rulers. Inherent here was also the reason for the failure of the empires to strike permanent roots. While couching his argument in this fashion, he thus stated that the failure to achieve Indian unity of which the invasions and the final subjection to the foreigner were the consequence, arose therefore at once from the magnitude and from the peculiarity of the task, because the easy method of a centralized empire could not truly succeed in India, while yet it seemed the only device possible and was attempted again and again with a partial success that seemed

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for the time and a long time to justify it but always with an eventual failure. (435)

Implicit above is a reiteration of an axiomatic truth that Aurobindo established by looking at India’s past when no empire survived, presumably because of their estrangement from the civilisational ethos on which India rested as a civilisational unit. There was another dimension which the Muslim conquest introduced in India; it was not merely a subjection to a foreign rule but also ‘the struggle between two civilizations, one ancient and indigenous, the other mediaeval and brought in from outside’ (442). In Aurobindo’s perception, the battle between the Islamic and Indian civilisations was one between two incomparables that rendered the problem insoluble because both these civilisations were ‘attached to powerful religions, the one militant and aggressive, the other spiritually tolerant indeed flexible, but obstinately faithful in its discipline to its own principle and standing on the defence behind a barrier of social forms’ (442). Given the incompatibility of ideational priorities, no endeavour, however serious it was, succeeded in creating a space for camaraderie between the rulers and the ruled as they were placed in completely separate compartments due to deep religious differences enhanced by the endorsement of the Muslim rulers. Hence, most of the efforts towards consolidating amity between the stark opposite ideational preferences remained unrealised. In view of the failure of efforts leading to bonhomie between Hindus and Muslims, there had emerged a vacuum which helped the British forces to defeat the opposition for establishing their hegemony in India. Aurobindo admitted that attempts were made to scuttle the effort of the Western powers, but instead of battling the intruders, ‘the lifeless attempt of the last generation to imitate and reproduce with a servile fidelity the ideals and forms of the West has been no true indication of the political mind and genius of the Indian people’, which led to the gradual expansion of the alien authority to extend its sphere of influence rather easily (444). As a perennially optimistic individual, Aurobindo was, however, persuaded to believe that the apparent acceptance of the bourgeois mindset was a temporary phenomenon since Indians were instinctively Samurai, as history proved repeatedly. Hence, being one who always believed in the reappearance of yugh-sandhya (rise of a new era of change and improvement), Aurobindo categorically mentioned that India of the ages is not dead nor has she spoken her last creative word; she loves and has still something to do for herself and the humanity. And that which must seek now to awake is not an anglicized oriental people, docile pupil of the West and doomed to repeat the cycle of

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The cycle of Aurobindo’s thought was complete as manifested in his expressive statement in favour of inculcating ‘immemorable Shakti’ based on complete adherence to dharma. Reconfirming his unconditional belief in the civilisational values and beliefs that evolved in India over many generations, Aurobindo did not doubt that the Samurai tradition prevailed over the bourgeois mindset which appeared to have gained acceptance with the patronage of the British. But given its fragile roots in India’s socio-economic and politico-cultural milieu, its future was bleak. It was evident when Aurobindo expressed doubt about the rise of the Anglicised people in contrast with those rooted in indigenous intellectual and wellentrenched civilisational traditions. It would be wrong to surmise that in so doing, Aurobindo was favourably disposed towards what was generally assumed to be Hindu views of life since his primary concern was to awaken people with reference to the heritage of which they became part as soon as they were born. By referring to the rise and collapse of the empires, primarily because of their failure to comprehend humanity in their socio-cultural context, he further defended his claim that mere coercive control was hardly adequate in the sustenance of an alien administration; what was required was to win the ruled by being emotionally connected with them, which was unlikely to happen in view of the stark differences between the outsider and insiders; the former seemed to have wrongly believed that by deploying forces, the voice of protest and complementary challenges could easily be muzzled and combatted respectably; that it was not so, as history confirms, since the insiders, by imbibing the Samurai spirit, presented an effective challenge which might not be strong enough to fulfil the goal; but, it was temporary, as per history, and the success could thus never be distant. With reference to how history moved, Aurobindo provided perhaps one of the most persuasive accounts of the historical trajectory of Indian polity which grew in importance at a particular juncture of human civilisation and also lost its salience in view of the weaknesses that evolved in the course of its journey. So, the rise and fall of the Indian polity was historically determined in the sense that in a propitious circumstance, it flourished and, in another milieu, it collapsed, which of course left us with the critical reasons for the explanation of the emergence and decay of historical phases of human civilisation.

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Concluding Observations Like Gandhi who, in his Hind Swaraj of 1909, evolved a powerful critique of Western civilisation while building his own model of freedom, Aurobindo too undertook the same task in his plethora of essays published in Indu Prakash, Karmayogin and Bande Mataram. As is evident, he, by delving into those socio-economic and politicalcultural issues which, he thought, needed to be conclusively addressed to bring about freedom in India in its real connotation, addressed some of the critical issues relating to India’s Nationalist struggle in the changed ecosystem. The task was difficult on three counts: (a) India was colonised and hence the colonial authority built a politicoideological foundation to justify colonialism as appropriate for India, (b) with the growth and consolidation of Loyalists, the colonial task was made easier since now the colonisers found allies among the ruled, and (c) the well-entrenched socio-cultural prejudices endorsing the age-old archaic and also superstitious behavioural traits with manifestations in interpersonal relationships. Nonetheless, the fact remains that Aurobindo evolved a mode of thinking which was neither an endorsement of the then widely accepted Moderate nationalism nor derivative of the dominant Western discourses. His unique model of democratic nationalism set out a new conceptual parameter for Indians to articulate their voice completely differently. Aurobindo’s role as an ideologue can thus be comprehended at three levels: at one level, his critique represented an assessment of Moderate nationalism which, he felt, was anything but an effective design for fulfilling the espoused goal; at another, his critical views helped us understand the nature of atrocious British rule in India which was not only deviant from the core principles of Enlightenment but also a well-designed model of exploiting the ruled; and yet, at another level, he was perhaps one of those innovative Nationalist thinkers who also understood that, with the growing discontent in India against the alien rulers, the Moderates’ mendicant nationalism completely lost its appeal to the people at large. The 1907 Surat Congress was a watershed event in India’s struggle for independence since with the rise of the New Nationalists, ‘the Moderate party shrank into a small body of liberals and even these finally subscribed to the ideal of complete independence’.18 Hence, in order to effectively combat the British rulers, it was incumbent on the Nationalists to devise new methods of struggle and also to expand their activities beyond the metropolitan cities of Calcutta and Bombay, which actually meant the inclusion of constituencies that, so far, had remained peripheral in the campaign against the imposed governance. In a nutshell, it was Aurobindo who, as one of the leading Nationalists

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of the early 20th century, carved a new narrative of nationalism in India by creating a space for the outlying sections of society which also helped develop new vocabularies to attract and retain them as integral to the battle against colonialism. There is an argument that Aurobindo was also backward-looking while making a case for India’s Purna Swaraj. It may appear so on the basis of a surface reading of the relevant text in this regard since he drew on India’s glorious past to support his contention. A deeper reading, however, leads one to draw a different conclusion. His purpose was to awaken the moribund nation by highlighting that India was not the same in the past. Gradually, India lost its vitality, given the hegemonic presence of Mohammedan rulers and the failure of the indigenous forces to counter them. Long Muslim governance was thus responsible for India’s decay. Aurobindo did not defend his point in communal terms; he held the Muslim rulers responsible for muzzling the indigenous socio-cultural voices which accounted for the gradual decline of Hindu values and the rise of the Islamic cultural tradition and its concomitant ideas and mores. The pattern hardly changed with the arrival of the British rulers in India. There were concerted attempts to malign the indigenous ideas as completely alien to progress. Here Aurobindo’s role was significant since, in order to substantiate his point, he not only delved into India’s past but also presented his findings in a persuasive manner. The purpose was not to glorify the past but to generate confidence among the participants in the Nationalist campaign by drawing on the claim that India was also a repository of knowledge and wisdom. Two interrelated components of this chapter deserve attention. First, unlike many of his Nationalist colleagues, Aurobindo realised that Hindu–Muslim amity was critical to India’s Purna Swaraj which, to him, never meant just political freedom, but also freedom from sociocultural exploitation. Hence, so long as Muslims were not treated at par with their Hindu counterparts, freedom was nothing but a distant dream. Neither the Moderates nor many of Aurobindo’s compatriots had ever seriously thought of including the Muslims despite being more than half Bengal’s demography. Second, Aurobindo was in favour of integrating the Muslims into the Nationalist struggle by also including their genuine demands. Given such an objective, he thus raised his voice against the well-entrenched Hindu dislike for the Muslims which was articulated in the well-nurtured socio-cultural prejudices by the Hindus against the Muslims. What he endeavoured was to generate social bonhomie between them by fiercely attacking the mindset that was carefully protected. It was most unfortunate that since many of his colleagues were not favourably disposed towards what he proposed, the

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idea gradually fizzled out. Nonetheless, he raised the point that without Hindu–Muslim camaraderie, the campaign for freedom never became as effective as it was hoped by the Swadeshi Nationalists. Through his innumerable writings, Rabindranath Tagore captured Aurobindo’s heartfelt concern for communal harmony. For example, his novels Ghare Baire (1916) and Gora (1910) epitomised how Tagore dealt with communal discord. Aurobindo was ahead of his time on many counts although it will not be fair to argue that he completely avoided his socio-cultural biases. It was evident in his analysis of the so-called Muslim period of India’s socio-political history. The account cannot be said to have been free from distortion. By highlighting rather those features roughly described as the Muslim era, Aurobindo failed to surpass the limitations of the Revolutionary Nationalist exclusionary approach. Aurobindo therefore had his responsibility in alienating the Muslims from the Swadeshi campaign. The formation of the Muslim League in 1906 provided the Muslims with an institutional platform to articulate and ventilate their grievances. As history demonstrates, the league not only gave a powerful voice to the Muslims but gradually helped them rise as a force that assisted the British authority in successfully implementing the divide-and-rule strategy. Aurobindo was thus one of those Nationalist leaders who foresaw certain issues; but given his inability to transcend the contextual sociocultural ideas, he also remained ‘a child of his time’ in many respects. An analysis of his ideas also shows that he did not seem to be happy with the dominant mode of thinking. But ultimately, he remained captive of the prevalent circumstances, as his codified views unambiguously suggest that his radicalism was muted on many occasions. Nonetheless, by putting the issue in the public domain, not only did he articulate the Hindu–Muslim issue but he also hinted that the estrangement of the Muslims from the mainstream Nationalist campaign was a wound that slowly became cancerous and thus went out of control. Could Aurobindo have halted the processes that finally led to the vivisection in 1947 of the country on the basis of the exclusionary socio-cultural identities of Hindus and Muslims which the colonisers utilised to their advantage by effectively deploying the divide-et-impera strategy? The answer is perhaps not so easy since the 1947 Partition into two sovereign countries, India and Pakistan, was an outcome of a complex interplay of processes which cannot be captured so easily.19 Nonetheless, historically speaking, Aurobindo designed a new narrative by insisting on Hindu–Muslim cooperation during the height of the Swadeshi Movement when it hardly received the attention it should have. Although at the risk of making a counterfactual argument, it

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can be stated that what Aurobindo suggested was revolutionary in approach but clearly lacked the appeal which was capable of displacing the prejudicial socio-cultural practices of the period. Aurobindo, however, stands out among the Nationalists on many counts. Prominent among them was his concerted effort to eradicate those socio-cultural restraining factors in developing communal togetherness. The nearest comparable figure was Rabindranath Tagore who also realised that unless it was meaningfully addressed, the Hindu– Muslim chasm was soon to be a source of greater concern for the Nationalists. That Tagore was right was evident as history progressed when communal animosity was utilised by the Hindu and Muslim zealots to further enhance the socio-cultural distance between these two preponderant communities in Bengal. What was most unfortunate was the claim that despite having diagnosed the disease, no effective design evolved, which suggests that the roots of communal schism went deep, presumably because of the failure of the Nationalists to gauge its divisive impact. By extending the argument a little further, one is persuaded to admit that socio-cultural differences between the communities had a class basis which was plausible to think given the fact that zamindars in East Bengal were mostly Hindus whereas the peasants were Muslims. The argument attributing the efforts towards protecting the well-guarded class interests of the zamindars to the alienation of the Muslim peasants thus makes sense. Aurobindo perhaps understood the critical importance of class prejudices in vertically dividing the people, as a careful reading of his texts underlined. The Nationalists waited for almost four decades when India became free by accepting M.A. Jinnah’s two-nation theory which was manifested in India’s vivisection in 1947.

2 AUROBINDO A Devout Nationalist The Nationalist movement in India underwent a radical change following the consolidation of revolutionary nationalism in the wake of the 1907 Surat Congress. Dissociating themselves from the mainstream leadership of the Indian National Congress, a relatively younger group of Congress activists articulated the New Nationalist design by fiercely critiquing the Moderates. Unhappy with the Moderate mode of protest, they preferred to directly attack the colonial authority by devising means which were not exactly constitutional. The aim was not only to challenge the British authority but also to show that Indians were not as weak as they were projected to be. The 1907 Surat Congress was thus a watershed in India’s Nationalist campaign in three ways: first, it signalled the decline of the Moderate phase and heralded the Revolutionary Nationalist phase of India’s campaign against the Raj. The change was also visible in colonial governance which also created space for the Indians to participate in executing government policies. One of the most significant steps in this regard was the adoption of the Morley–Minto Reforms of 1909 which officially included many Indians in governance at the grassroots. It was advantageous to the British rulers because it was now possible for them to execute many of the anti-Indian policies rather easily by avoiding being blamed by the ruled. Second, the Surat Congress also created a space for the young leaders who were, so far, mere appendages to the well-established veteran Nationalists. Being politically baptised by the old school of Nationalist ideational priorities, they upheld the constitutional-liberal modes of resistance to British rule. It was therefore not unusual for Surendranath Banerjea, Dadabhai Naoroji, M.G. Ranade and their Moderate colleagues to stick to the Moderate methods of resistance, namely prayer, petition and protest. Furthermore, their activities were largely confined to the adoption of resolutions in the annual sessions of the Indian National Congress. Nonetheless, their contributions were also useful since they helped us understand the changing character of colonialism following the abortive mutiny of soldiers or the first war of independence in 1857. While Banerjea drew our attention to the processes leading to the rise of India as a nation or well-knit collectivity despite being 75

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socio-culturally disparate, Dadabhai Naoroji and R.C. Dutt articulated how exploitation by the colonisers made India poor day by day. Their thorough analysis of British economic policies for India provided us with insights into this phenomenon. By his relentless critique against the deliberately contrived socio-cultural divide among Indians around the axes of caste, religion and ethnicity, Ranade opened a vista of enquiry in the Nationalist discourses. Finally, with the recognition of the Revolutionary Nationalists as an important constituent, the Surat Congress ushered in a new era in India’s Nationalist campaign. One of the reasons was, of course, the declining importance of the Moderate techniques in sustaining the support base among the members of the National Congress which also reveals that Moderate nationalism was no longer as appealing as before. A new set of leaders, Lal-Bal-Pal, emerged who not only put a new ideational design of nationalism but also transformed the Nationalist strategies by being deviant from the well-established liberal-constitutional means. Instead of being reconciliatory, the Revolutionary Nationalists did not seem to have had hesitation in adopting means so long as they were useful for attaining their espoused goal. It is true that the Congress waited for more than two decades to formally accept India’s independence as its goal in the 1929 Lahore Congress. Nonetheless, there is no denying that Revolutionary Nationalists played a critical role in radically altering the complexion of the Nationalist campaign at their behest. While the trio Lal-Bal-Pal took the leadership of the anti-British agitation, their relatively young colleague, Aurobindo, was involved in preparing the ideational foundation of revolutionary nationalism as distinctly different from the politico-ideological priorities of the erstwhile Moderate Nationalists. On his return to India from England in 1893, he took upon himself the role of rearticulating the Nationalist agenda in conformity with the new ideational preferences. This was the beginning of a period when the youths of Bengal resorted to violence as appropriate for combatting the ruthless colonial rule. Aurobindo did not openly support militant nationalism. Nonetheless, by justifying that it was the only option left for them, it was crystal clear that he was emotionally inclined to their views. There was another aspect in his thinking which was also visible in the early part of his Nationalist career, namely, he was a vocal supporter of Swaraj or self-rule, which was a break with the past in the sense that the Moderates favoured liberal-constitutional means to resolve the difficulties confronting the ruled. By setting out a new course of action, Aurobindo also conveyed that Swaraj needed to be wrested by applying force, if necessary, since the Raj was not at all responsive to the legitimate demands of the colonised. Aurobindo can thus be said to have ideologically navigated the Nationalist campaign in a completely different

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direction which gained momentum once Gandhi reigned supreme in the Nationalist agitation. From the politico-ideological perspective, Aurobindo was thus a pioneer of ideas which were nebulous in character before he appeared on the scene. As available historical evidence suggests, his approach to nationalism was a creative blending of what he imbibed by being drawn to experiences from other parts of the globe. Indeed, he was not one of those Nationalists who openly campaigned for militancy, although the examples that he provided to substantiate his ideational claim were illustrative of his inclination towards militant nationalism. There are thus two levels at which he pitched his approach to the Nationalist campaign: at the ideational level, he devised a design which attracted youths and those who remained peripheral earlier largely due to the Moderates’ conceptualisation of nationalism being an exclusive domain of a select few for their exclusive socio-cultural characteristics. Being aware that mere ideological justification was not adequate to mobilise support for the cause, hence, he, at a rather pragmatic level, devised specific schemes to articulate a Nationalist voice. Boycott was, for instance, one of those devices which he propounded towards realising the objective. As the chapter focuses on Aurobindo’s distinct ideational conceptualisation of nationalism, it has two principal arguments with one secondary argument to carry forward the discussion. One of the principal arguments relates to the nature of nationalism that came out of his written texts. According to him, nationalism was not just a political tool for mobilisation—it was also a device for generating an emotional attachment to the cause. Linked with this was another principal argument suggesting that as nationalism was meant to create a collectivity for a cause, it needed to be inculcated by drawing on those indigenous socio-cultural characteristics of the multitude which were meaningful to the supporters. What is emphasised here is the idea that nationalism per se meant nothing unless it was complemented by a set of action-driven activities. The secondary argument is about the role of the Nationalists, both past and present, who provided him with insights to develop his points of view persuasively. In order to develop this aspect of the narrative, the chapter draws on the ideas of the Moderates and also his contemporaries who, despite not being ideationally compatible, helped him build his unique approach to nationalism.

Conceptual Issues As is commonly believed, Aurobindo reconceptualised nationalism in a changed politico-ideological perspective. Moderates were phasing

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out and being replaced by Revolutionary Nationalists. It was reflective of significant ideational changes since instead of accepting India’s emancipation within the empire, the Revolutionary Nationalists countered this by saying that it was not only deceptive but also a design to permanently keep Indians under chains. As argued here, Revolutionary Nationalists were different from their predecessors not only ideationally but also in terms of the methods they deployed to attain the goal. While seeking to mobilise supporters, they generally drew on Hindu or Hinduised symbols or imageries which were largely tilted in favour of Hindu constituencies. For instance, Tilak’s Shivaji or Ganapati festivals were hardly effective in bringing Muslims to the Nationalist fold. Similarly, the worship of the nation as a mother also acted as a deterrent to the Muslims. Hence, one is persuaded to make the argument that by endorsing one set of symbols to approach one set of supporters, namely Hindus and not Muslims, the Revolutionary Nationalists created a horizontal division between the two principal communities. The idea of the nation as a mother was the contribution of the famous littérateur Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay who put forward this conceptualisation in his novel, Anandamath. It was made popular by the Revolutionary Nationalists during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. So, in their perception, service to the nation was as good as serving one’s mother. Despite being aware of the fact that reverence to the mother in the public domain was a source of alienation for the Muslims, the Revolutionary Nationalists endeavoured to create an exclusive Nationalist constituency by ignoring the Muslims of Bengal. The Muslim League, which came into being in 1906, reaped the benefit. What is striking, however, was their failure to recognise the adverse consequences of such a design, especially when the Muslims had their organisation, the Muslim League, to champion their causes. It is also tragic that despite stern warnings by many of their intellectual mentors, the Revolutionary Nationalists appeared to have ignored them. For instance, Vivekananda who was claimed to have acted decisively in shaping revolutionary nationalism as an ideological alternative, always insisted on Hindu–Muslim unity as essential for the rise of India as a nation. Conceptually innovative, his design was directed to create a template for unity among the main religious groups. Unfortunately, Vivekananda’s model did not receive adequate attention from among the Revolutionary Nationalists. As a result, despite their unflinching devotion to the Nationalist cause, they failed to create an effective Nationalist campaign. Illustrative here is the 1905–1908 Swadeshi Movement when the Hindu identity of the campaign helped create a fissure between the two major communities of Bengal. Tagore’s novel, Ghare Baire, is an account of the gradual

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estrangement of the Muslims from the movement for revocation of the first partition of Bengal. Conceptually, the Swadeshi Movement provided insights to understand how the idea of nation was conceived by Revolutionary Nationalists and how Aurobindo differed from them. The Revolutionary Nationalist activists tended to conceptualise the idea of the nation in the European mode of thinking. Hence, religious identity was considered divisive since it caused a vertical split among the Indians who imbibed the spirit of being together over centuries. The other aspect of nationalism in the Revolutionary Nationalist perspective was to conceptualise the nation as a mother. The novel, Anandamath, by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay was a critical source in this regard. Just like Santandal in the novel who pledged to liberate the motherland by being ready to sacrifice everything including life for the cause, the Revolutionary Nationalists prepared themselves accordingly for wresting freedom for India from the British. Objectively, the efforts were directed at mobilising support for the cause. Hence, Aurobindo’s reference to the novel was a deliberate endeavour in articulating his nationalist zeal. Critical of the Moderate leaders who were reluctant to create a space for the vibrant youth of the country given their strong opposition to mainstream nationalism, Aurobindo insisted on taking them as copartners in the battle for freedom. It was a source of serious handicap to the Nationalist platform. Unless it was dealt with, the clamour for nationalism had no meaning, lamented Aurobindo. So, a time had arrived for redefining nationalism. According to Aurobindo, what was required to realise the full potential of the Nationalists was to combine the old guard who had the experience and resources with ‘the younger men [who] have the lion’s share of energy and driving force, … and exercise an overwhelming empire over the minds of [the] rising generation’.1 On the basis of such a fundamental assumption, he further argued that ‘to organize the nation means to make all of its elements of strength efficient for a single clear and well-understood work under the leadership of a recognized central force. To exclude such important forces as these we have described means simply to leave the nation unorganized’ (631). Unlike many of his compatriots, Aurobindo was a man of organisation; instead of believing in the hit-and-run tactics of some of his colleagues, he was in favour of a well-built organisation for pursuing the cause of freedom. It was he who also floated the idea that exclusive endeavour did not seem to be adequate since the Moderates, who fought the British rule in their fashion, also had useful advice to offer. Hence, his suggestion was to create a platform where the old ideas were

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recognised as useful to carry forward the new mode of counter-attack to the British rule in India. The division was, however, complete with the fragmentation of the Congress in the 1907 Surat Congress between the Moderates and Revolutionary Nationalists. Besides the importance of organisation, Aurobindo also felt that for its sustenance what was required was a statesman who must be a man thoroughly steeped in the gospel of nationalism with a clear and fearless recognition of the goal to which we are moving, with a dauntless courage to aim consciously, steadily, indomitable towards it, with a consummate skill to mask his movements and aims when necessary and to move boldly and openly when necessary, and, last but not the least, with an overmastering magnetic power and tact to lead and use and combine men of all kinds and opinions. (632)

Elaborate here are the qualities of a statesman; distinctive here was Aurobindo’s concern for bringing socio-culturally disparate people on one platform which also meant that the conventional characterisation of Aurobindo being communal like many of his compatriots among the Revolutionary Nationalists can be questioned. His primary concern was to evolve a single mindset in India regardless of the socio-cultural schism, which was of utmost importance for the fulfilment of the goal. One who also emphasised the role of leaders in mobilising support for a common cause, Aurobindo argued strongly for the creation of a statesman who was not only acceptable to all but also never indulged in ‘excluding those with concerns for the nation, out of his personal dislike or jealousy’ (632). This was a most perceptive comment with multiple implications on the conceptualisation of the nation by his parameters. First, being aware that India was not socio-culturally monochromatic, he understood that to ideologically persuade activists belonging to diverse sets of populations, it was necessary to take into account their distinct socio-cultural beliefs. His aim was therefore to evolve a mechanism to rise above all these differences for a common cause. It will not be an exaggeration to suggest here that he was perhaps disenchanted by the Swadeshi activists who hardly paid attention to the special requirements of the poor Muslims in East Bengal who were gradually alienated from the mainstream Nationalist campaign largely due to their failure to understand that Muslims were needed to be associated with the antiBritish campaign; otherwise, the campaign ceased to be ‘national’ and became ‘sectarian’. For him, the Nationalist campaign was directed to ensure the well-being of the nation which was not for one religious group at the cost of another. This was a campaign for the liberty of the colonised. It was not an easy task since once liberty was denied, argued Aurobindo, the victims obviously nurtured hatred for those responsible

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for them. In order to restore liberty, one of the first requirements was to develop oneness among those who were drawn to one another for wresting their liberty. Aurobindo thus felt that the conditions for India were ripe given the brutal nature of British rule and also the deprivation of the colonised of their legitimate due. In his perception, the idea of a nation was thus ingrained in India as she was being dispossessed for the gain of the colonisers. Here, the rulers bulldozed the entire nation to fulfil their objectives. In Aurobindo’s conceptualisation, the milieu was ready for India to rise as a nation; what was wanting was the ability of the Congress leadership to build a single voice out of the environment in which people, regardless of their religion, class and ethnicity, were subject to inhuman suffering. It was not an easy job since the path to attaining the Nationalist goal was difficult. Nonetheless, Aurobindo was confident because, as he mentioned, ‘our constituents are aware of the difficulties in our way and we hope they will stand by us till we shall have fulfilled our mission’ (629). An analytical dissection of the ideas Aurobindo put forward as an introduction to his idea of nation underlines two points of critical significance: on the one hand, he was perhaps one of those early Nationalists, including the poet Rabindranath Tagore, who emphatically believed that in India, the idea of nation as conceptualised in the West was simply inapplicable given the absence of ingredients which were integral to the European nation. As India was multi-cultural, multi-religious and multi-lingual, it was difficult to apply the same formula here. On the other hand, he emphasised the importance of leadership; here, he probably had in mind the Italian nationalists, Mazzini and Garibaldi, who succeeded in bringing divided Italy together amid differences. He probably saw in them examples of the effort towards knitting a disparate population together for a common cause. Likewise, he insisted on the critical role of leadership in generating bonhomie among the Indians who, similar to their Italian counterparts, were divided around many socio-cultural and politico-economic axes.

Ideational Base of Nationalism Aurobindo was a fierce critic of the Indian National Congress that flourished at the behest of the Moderate leadership since it, instead of articulating the Nationalist cause, became an appendage to the British rule in India. Convinced that such an organisation was anything but useful in effectively guiding the mass zeal for fulfilling the nation’s cause, he thus strongly criticised the organisation and also the leaders for their inability to rouse the colonised around the goal of independence.

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That he had no doubt to feel that the Congress lost its viability was expressed clearly when he mentioned that ‘if I were not fully confident that [his idea] is a snare and a delusion, … I should have suppressed my own doubts and remained silent’.2 By pursuing the argument a little further, he also suggested that with this conceptualisation, he hoped to bring over ‘one or two of my countrymen to [his] own way of thinking, or if that be not possible, at any rate to induce them to think a little more deeply than they have done’ (11). Disillusioned with the way the Congress dealt with the British rulers, he further exposed the weak character of the leaders who wrongly felt that India’s emancipation was possible only by being submissive to the authority. For the Congress, ‘the Queen-Empress being benevolent and caring [is] expected to address the genuine grievances of the Indian masses’ (14) which was deceptive, according to Aurobindo. What annoyed him most was ‘the general timidity of the Congress and … its disinclination to tell the truth [and also] its fear of too deeply displeasing our masters’ (14). The Moderate Congress became servile presumably because it was unable to comprehend the idea of nationalism in its actual connotation. An exploitative regime remained so—as long as it was allowed to remain so—which also suggests that what was needed was to prepare a mindset opposed to the belief that the continuity of British rule in India was useful for the Indians. So, Aurobindo addressed his concern at two levels: at the level of the opinion makers, especially the Nationalist activists, he warned them of the adverse consequences of misleading the nation. The rulers pursued their partisan interests, and hence, the widely hyped ‘British sense of justice was anything but deceitful’ (19), argued Aurobindo. At the level of leadership, his advice was to generate a sense of commitment to the nation which was possible when we no longer obey the dictates of a veiled self-interest, but return to the profession of a large and genuine patriotism, when we cease to hanker after the soiled crumbs when England may cast to us from her table, then it will be to that sense of manhood, to that sincere fellow-feeling that we shall finally and forcibly appeal. (19)

Intrinsic here are two critical points which Aurobindo thought needed to be addressed immediately to develop nationalism as a cementing factor. It was true, he believed, that the British rule instilled servility in us which became integral to our character since Indians did not have the mental strength to reject the freebies or facilities of being Loyalists. Hence, he perceptively argued that ‘our actual enemy is not any force exterior to ourselves, but our own weaknesses, our cowardice, our selfishness, our hypocrisy, our purblind sentimentalism’ (18).

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The National Congress was characteristically an organisation of the elites which restricted its sphere of influence, for obvious reasons. That this was not suitable to rouse people for the cause did not require elaboration, believed Aurobindo. Implicit here was his comment on the weaknesses of the campaign led by an organisation with a very limited support base. Being one of the leading priests of revolutionary nationalism, he realised that unless the Congress became an instrument for mass mobilisation for the Nationalist cause, the struggle for freedom remained a mere cosmetic design. While seeking to build his alternative model of the Nationalist Congress, he minced no words in condemning the Moderate Congress by underlining that ‘I have no hesitation in saying that the National Congress was not really national had not in any way attempted to become national [italics in original]’ (21). In order to substantiate his argument, he further added that Congress represents not the mass of the population, but a single and limited class. No doubt the Congress tried very hard in the beginning to believe that it really represented the mass of the population, but if it has not already abandoned, it ought now at least to abandon the pretension as quite untenable. (23–24)

It was a powerful critique of the Moderate Congress which helps us understand Aurobindo’s distinct approach to nationalism. Most of the ideas that led to the rise of revolutionary nationalism as a counter to Moderate nationalism had their origin in this characterisation of the Congress. The essays that he wrote during the period between 7 August 1893 and 6 March 1894 with the title ‘New Lamps for Old’ contain his conceptualisation of nationalism in contrast with what was prevalent. The argument is clear since it highlighted the limited support base of the Moderate mode of nationalism; and warned that in order to make the Nationalist campaign an effective tool for mobilisation of the antiBritish forces, what was required was to devise designs for involvement in the movement of those who remained peripheral. The task was not so easy, and he was aware that the middle-class hegemony among the Moderates was a hindrance to transforming the National Congress into a mass organisation. He was appalled because it was the middle class that generally acted against the interests of the people at large. In Aurobindo’s perception, despite the fact that nationalism drew its supporters from among the middle class, he had no hesitation in condemning those belonging to this class because they were the ones who ‘have driven out native goods; they [thus contributed to the processes whereby] our society has lost its old landmarks and is being demarcated on the English model’.3 By referring to the famous court

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case of 1893 involving the rights of the Anglo-Indians, Aurobindo sarcastically mentioned that the Congress movement is nothing if not a grand suit-at-law … in which the ultimate tribunal is the British sense of justice and by deciding to argue for the litigants, the leading Moderate leaders, Pherozshah Mehta, Umesh Chandra Bonnerji and other eminent leaders of the bar were busy proving their legal acumen.4

Explicit here is the view that Moderate nationalism comprised just piecemeal efforts on the part of the so-called Nationalists since they were also busy establishing their reputation as lawyers, which they preferred, presumably because it was an effective tool for fulfilling their partisan goals. Disillusioned with the methods of the Moderates, Aurobindo thus looked at India’s rich intellectual past, showing India’s capability in all walks of life. He was aware that it was not judicious to simply imitate the past as contemporary India was textured completely differently. Hence, his suggestion was to draw on India’s past achievements as a source of inspiration. As a realist to the core, he, however, did not altogether reject the ideas that came along with British colonialism so long as they were of help in rejuvenating the Indian masses for the cause. To this end, argued Aurobindo, ‘it is requisite closely to inquire what has actually been the main outcome of English political effort, and whether it is of a nature to justify any implicit reliance on English methods or exact imitation of English models’ (31). There are therefore three important sources which acted critically in shaping Aurobindo’s notion of nationalism: first, he insisted that nationalism was a tool for galvanising people into action which means that it should take into account those issues which remained integral to their life; in other words, he was emphasising the importance of context-centric socio-economic and politico-cultural issues which immediately helped the participants connect with the struggle for freedom; second, being convinced that to be confident as a nation, the role of history was also critical led him to argue strongly in favour of drawing on India’s intellectual past. There were two reasons: on the one hand, not only did the past inspire the present generation but also built a sense of belonging to a great nation among the participants by associating with the great intellectual legacies; finally, he was aware that the British intellectual past was also rich and had insights to offer to a struggling nation; hence, he never outright rejected the Western discourses, but was careful in selecting what he deemed appropriate for the cause of India’s emancipation. We must add a caveat here. By Western discourse, he did not mean the European, but the English discourse. It was unfortunate that by being colonised by the British,

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they were not allowed to have access to non-British ideas which were equally intellectually innovative and inspirational. In a very persuasive manner, Aurobindo articulated his point of view by saying that as we are forced to take only English diet, … we did not care to purchase an outfit of political ideas which [were contrarian to] what we have been repeatedly given. As a result, we stuffed our wardrove with the cast-off rags and threadbare leavings of our English masters and this incongruous apparel we display with a pompous self-approval which no unfriendly murmurs, no unkind allusions are allowed to trouble.5

The argument has three components: first, it was an attempt to forcefully argue that the claim that English ideas were superior and thus worth imitating was sternly challenged; second, by condemning the effort of the Indian intellectuals at the behest of the Moderate Congressmen to blindly emulate the English ideas, he provoked a debate in the public domain regarding the justifiability of such an endeavour; finally, he also questioned the uncritical acceptance of what the colonial power transferred to the native thinkers for the national well-being which also demonstrated their intellectual bankruptcy and mental servility. Besides these, what struck him most was the spontaneous support to occidental scholars who thrived in Bengal with the formation of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1784. He was clueless as to why the occidental scholars who came to Bengal for their concern for sustaining the Indian languages and knowledge were taken so seriously by the indigenous intellectuals. This was also a reflection of intellectual bankruptcy. Instead of being blind in endorsing whatever these scholars provided, the local intellectuals, Aurobindo suggested, should be careful in choosing what appeared to be useful for understanding the Indian reality. Hence, there was no point in accepting that ‘they will rescue us from our present appalling condition of intellectual and moral decay’6 unless it was proved that their approach and ideas ‘our diverse conditions may be found to dictate’ (46). Critical here was his concern that the acceptance of the derivative discourses credulously was not, at all, gainful, but had elements which made a nation servile and without an independent voice. On the whole, he was not for blind replication of either the oriental or occidental ideas since it was a British ploy to make Indians intellectually dependent on what the rulers designed for the ruled. Here, he blamed the Moderate leadership for having nearly failed to generate an independent voice in contrast to the voice that the foreign rulers articulated for them. The Congress thus became ‘futile … and meagre in the scope of its utility and wholly

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inapt for the functions it ought to exercise’ (48). The outcome, instead of being useful for fulfilling the goal, was disastrous since the socioeconomic and politico-cultural foundation on which India rested was one of ‘social collapse, of social calamities’. What was thus required to be done was to address ‘the inadequacies of our recent political thought’ (48), which was possible if we devoted our energy, argued Aurobindo, in first combatting the debilitating ideas responsible for ‘India’s moral and cultural decay … and also safeguarding those practices selfishly frigid to social development and the awakening of the masses’ (48–49). So, the task ahead of the Nationalists was, felt Aurobindo, ‘to resolutely hold fast to the primary fact that right and effective action can only ensue upon a right understanding of ourselves in relation to our environment’.7 Once we succeeded in conceptualising our socio-economic and politico-cultural realities, it was easier for the Nationalists to devise a set of meaningful plans and programmes since they drew on ‘reflection and instinct to get a clear insight into our position and … dexterity to make the most of it’ (53). The core claim here is that what was most important for India’s liberation was to inculcate a sense of confidence which appeared to have been decimated by British hegemony and also the spontaneous acceptance by the Indians of the intellectual superiority of the rulers. In other words, in the collection of essays entitled ‘New Lamps for Old’, Aurobindo prepared an intellectual template seeking to instil a concern for the nation among those who instinctively accepted the derivative discourses as axiomatic. By drawing on India’s rich intellectual heritage, he not only challenged the assumption but also evolved an antithesis which gradually gained acceptance in the Nationalist campaign in the post-Moderate era of Indian nationalism. The aforesaid argument has two complementary components: on the one hand, it was an attempt to expose the thinking that the British discourses were perfect and hence worth emulating; along with this, he also tirelessly endeavoured, on the other hand, to develop a persuasive argument suggesting that it was neither true nor logically convincing given India’s rich socio-cultural heritage. So, what was required to be done was to unearth those ideas which led India to flourish in all walks of life. Disenchanted by the lack of interest of the masses for national emancipation and also the most demoralising endeavour of the Moderate leaders of the National Congress, he expressed his feelings candidly in an open letter ‘to the sons of our mother Bharat who disclaim their sonhood, to the children of languor and selfishness, to the wooers of safety & ease, to the father of despair and death’.8 The letter was not just his own assessment of the situation but an elaboration of how he felt having witnessed the lackadaisical

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attitude of the people and also those who were supposed to lead them in the Nationalist struggle. Articulating his disillusionment, he thus mentioned that we are weak and languid and our weakness grows weaker and our languor more languid every time the sun rises in the east. We are sick and broken; we are idle and cowardly; we perish every year from famine and plague; disease decimates us, with every decade poverty annihilates family after family.… Worst of all we are disunited beyond hope of union and without union we must ere long perish.… With such Siren song do you slay the hearts of those who have still force and courage to strive against Fate and would rescue our Mother out of the hands of destruction.… Come therefore, let us reason calmly together. (68–69)

The letter was directed to rejuvenate the moribund nation. By holding the Moderate leaders responsible for their failure to discharge their duties, he carved a new Nationalist narrative by seeking to involve the masses. Being aware that the British rule was most exploitative, he thus undertook activities to create an intellectual template which was a creative amalgamation of both the derivative and indigenous resources. The letter also expressed that despite being helpless, he saw a silver lining because he believed that Indians were capable of rising again like the proverbial phoenix. Pointing out the adverse consequences of internal division, he still found that it was possible to weave together the disparate masses given the common civilisational ethos binding all into one. It is not clear whether he referred to the disunity between Hindus and Muslims since the schism was politically visible only in the context of the 1905–1908 Swadeshi Movement in Bengal, whereas his essays in ‘New Lamps for Old’ were written in the last decade of the 19th century. Nonetheless, it can easily be surmised that since by the late 19th century, the Muslim peasants’ revolt against Hindu zamindars exposed the socio-cultural distance between Hindus and Muslims which also had a class axis as per the classical Marxist conceptualisation, Aurobindo perhaps gauged the implications on the Nationalist effort. There are, however, reasons to believe that to him, the Hindu–Muslim chasm did not seem to have been so critical because, in his conceptualisation of nationalism, the idea of mother remained an important component which was contrary to Islamic teachings. As he did not deal with this aspect of Indian nationalism which grew in importance, especially in the post-Swadeshi campaign and also with the formation of the Muslim League in 1906, it is also not fair to characterise his politico-ideological preferences as sectarian or communal.

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Intellectual Roots His idea of nationalism was rooted in the distinct approaches to the phenomenon by many Indian thinkers and practitioners. As argued above, while evolving his unique conceptualisation, he was influenced by the prevalent socio-economic and politico-cultural contexts. Equally important were the inspirational insights that he derived from those creative thinkers who saw nationalism in a new fashion that neither corresponded with the Moderate version nor was in conformity with its European form; it was uniquely textured, drawing on India’s rich intellectual heritage as well. It will not be out of place to mention that Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) also referred to three significant socio-cultural and literary currents while setting out his mode of thinking. According to him, by fiercely critiquing the prevalent sociocultural practices, Rammohun Roy (1773–1833) brought about a radical change in our approach, particularly to many well-entrenched archaic socio-cultural designs which were impediments to the growth of humanity as a well-knit collectivity; similarly, with the rise of Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay (1838–1894) as a litterateur, Bangla as a language was reconceptualised differently. Also, by focusing on day-to-day life in Bengal in his novels and other creative writings, he can be said to have created a milieu in which Bangla became a respectable mode of expression even for the educated classes. In the Nationalist campaign, he also witnessed the transformation from the so-called mendicant politics to one which drew its inspiration from those who demanded the wresting of power from alien authority by resorting to violence, if necessary. Aurobindo was also nurtured in the same context and his sources of inspiration were nearly the same. Enamoured by the inspirational insights of Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, he compared him with a rishi or sage who was the creator of thought and civilisation. For him, Chatterjee was a sishi since he also evolved ideas which were revolutionary and path-breaking in Bengal’s history. Given his immense contribution to the reawakening of Bengalis, he forcibly included Bankim who ‘gave us the reviving mantra which is creating new India, the mantra of Bande Mataram’.9 He assessed the litterateur by evaluating his creative works in two interrelated components: in the earlier phase, he flourished mainly as a poet and a novelist; in his latter phase, he was, according to Aurobindo, ‘a seer and nation-builder’ (638). His contribution in the first phase of his creativity was equally significant which Aurobindo highlighted by saying that he gave us ‘a tongue which was free from old Sanskritized Bengali [representing] … conservative and un-progressing Bengal’ (638). It was a revolutionary step since his writings helped us develop

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a language which was ‘a combination of the strength, dignity or soft beauty of Sanskrit with the verve and vigour of the vernacular, capable at one end of the utmost vernacular richness and at the other the most sonorous gravity’ (638). According to Aurobindo, Bankim gave us ‘a means by which the soul of Bengal could express itself to itself ’ (639). Besides his critical contribution to making Bangla a respectable form of expression for all, he also discharged a significant political role by highlighting ‘the inutility of the method of political agitation which prevailed in his time and [by exposing it] with merciless satire in Lokarahasya and Kamalakantar Daptar’ (639). He was admired by Aurobindo since his politico-ideological ideas were appropriately designed for India’s salvation. By believing that ‘the force from above must be met by a mightier reacting force from below, the strength of repression by an insurgent national strength’ (639), he bade us, argued Aurobindo, ‘leave the canine method of agitation from the leonine’ (639). Bankim remained a resource of inspiration because he created an image of a mother in his novels, Anandamath (1882) and Debi Chaudhurani (1884), who, instead of holding the bowl of the mendicant, empowered those battling for liberation by entrusting them with a nerve of steel and inexhaustible energy. These two novels epitomised Bankim’s conceptualisation of the Nationalist zeal which was articulated by identifying qualities like ‘self-sacrifice’, ‘self-devotion’ and ‘self-discipline’. As the devotees of the motherland were ‘political byragees’ (ascetics), they represented ‘the religion of patriotism’ (639). Bankim also stood out, as Aurobindo highlighted, because ‘the supreme service that he gave to the nation [was] his vision of our Mother’, who, according to him was ‘the gospel of fearless strength and force’ (639). Besides being emotionally inspirational, Bankim’s idea of ‘mother’ was complemented by his Bande Mataram song that awakened the moribund nation by baptising its members in ‘the religion of patriotism’ (640–641). Hence, he concluded that Bankim’s contribution to rejuvenating India was of tremendous significance because he not only gave a vision but also helped the Nationalists articulate the vision in practice by developing a template for all by suggesting that ‘a great nation that has had a great vision can never again bend its neck in subjection to the yoke of [the] conqueror’ (641). Fundamental here are two points: first, for Aurobindo, Bankim’s writings were a great source of inspiration to the Nationalists who appeared to have been groping in the dark in the absence of an inspiring ideological tool which they found in the novelist’s creative texts, especially Anandamath and Devi Chaudhurani. Second, the song Bande Mataram, by invoking the service to the motherland, generated a new wave of thinking which was, so far, absent in the Nationalist discourses.

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The second Nationalist leader who contributed to Aurobindo’s idea of nationalism was Bal Gangadhar Tilak (1856–1920) who was hailed by him as ‘one of the two or three leaders of the Indian people who are in their eyes the incarnations of the national endeavour and the God-given captains of the national aspiration’.10 Given his character, his work and endurance, he created a space in the minds and hearts of the people which was manifested in the enthusiastic participation in his struggle for Swaraj, self-government and Home Rule, the aims of which were to bring about India’s politico-ideological transformation. He was not an ordinary individual since he was endowed with qualities which were articulated in the texts that he published for a wider set of readers. Aurobindo particularly referred to his Gita Rahasya (1915) which, despite being a reiteration of the ideas of the Bhagavad Gita, was also governed by his concern to develop a mindset of being proud of India’s rich intellectual heritage. According to him, Krishna was not, at all, godly, but an expression of commitment to just causes; his support to the Pandavas was thus based on the claim that since they were against injustice, he extended support to their effort at eradicating its roots. Besides providing a new interpretation of the Bhagavad Gita, he also believed that education was an important ingredient for a nation to be stronger because illiteracy allowed superstitions to strike roots in human minds rather easily. There were two significant steps that he undertook; besides founding the Ferguson College in Poona in 1885, he also started a vernacular newspaper, Kesari, to spread the Nationalist message to the people at large. Like Bankim and some of his Revolutionary Nationalist contemporaries, he also believed that in order to revive the self-esteem of Indians, what was required to be done was to draw out the fact that India had an equally significant past, not only as a hub of intellectual activities but was also known for devising a system of governance for collective well-being. The socio-cultural division that became prominent during colonialism was an outcome of the British design, and also, at the same time, our lackadaisical attitude to her past. The purpose here was not just to reawaken Indians politically but also to charge them with the powerful spiritual messages stemming from the past. It was an attempt at rekindling the soul of the people by linking its future to its past. Hence, in his politico-ideological design, festivals commemorate the contribution of Shivaji, who successfully combatted the Mughal emperor, Aurangzeb. In Tilak’s perception, it was the victory of a Hindu king against a Muslim emperor which also shows that one’s steadfast commitment to one’s motherland helps one to protect it. Similarly, the introduction of the Ganapati festival on a wider scale was also a watershed in Nationalist mobilisation. Many of his colleagues deserted him as he was criticised as a conservative leader.

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Aurobindo, however, did not find merit in this argument because he believed that he was perhaps one of those successful political mobilisers who were ‘the new political spirit with the tradition and sentiment of the historic past and of both with ineradicable religious temperament of the people, of which these festivals were the symbol’ (645). Not only was it an attempt ‘to break through the routine of its somewhat academical methods’, argued Aurobindo, ‘but also to bridge the gulf between the present and the past [in order to] restore continuity to the political life of the nation’ (645). Indian nationalism was now articulated in a language which ‘Indianized the movement and brought into it the masses; it was also a process of divinization of the mind and spirit of his people and its needs’ (645). That it was an effective tool for political mobilisation was revealed during the Swadeshi Movement (1905–1908) when he rose to prominence as one of the invincible leaders of the campaign. Although he remained confined to Maharashtra during the struggle, he was one of the Nationalist leaders who always felt the importance of spreading the Swadeshi message to the country as a whole. His famous slogan, ‘Swaraj is my birthright’ electrified the nation and acted effectively in uniting the Nationalists from across many British Indian provinces. Basic here is the point that despite being physically present in many places, his call for Swaraj immediately created a space for him in other parts of India. Despite having endorsed him as a national leader, Aurobindo did not seem to have been confident about whether he deserved to be treated so. He explained his reservations by putting forth two arguments: (a) Tilak’s insistence on the Shivaji and Ganapati festivals did not augur well with many mainstream Congress Nationalists for they were potentially divisive by being tilted towards one religious community; it was a source of consternation as India comprised kaleidoscope identities which were not compatible in socio-cultural terms; and (b) furthermore, notwithstanding his undiluted commitment to the Nationalist cause, that he was a liberal-constitutionalist deterred many of his Revolutionary Nationalist colleagues who had no faith in institutions of authority, like the Parliament and legislative assemblies and councils. Nonetheless, there was no denying, argued Aurobindo, that the model he developed was ‘national’ in its appeal although it was articulated largely based on Maratha socio-cultural symbols which had their obvious limitations in other parts of the country. He was one of the strong votaries of revolutionary nationalism in the 1907 Surat Congress which allowed him to carve out a new narrative of nationalism by emphasising the importance of India’s past socio-cultural and intellectual traditions. His book, Gita Rahasya (1915), was one of the foundational pillars of the new conceptualisation of nationalism which was radically different from the mendicant nationalism of the Moderates. The other aspect

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was articulated when he exhorted that without involving the people in the anti-British agitation, it was impossible to achieve Swaraj. Similar to Aurobindo, Lajpat Rai and Bipin Chandra Pal, and unlike their Moderate predecessors, it was Tilak who, by insisting on the criticality of the masses in the struggle for Swaraj, can be said to have prepared the intellectual foundation for Gandhi to evolve his pan-Indian campaign against the alien governance. Aurobindo also admired Tilak for being an astute strategist since he was the one who persuaded those who were disillusioned with the Moderates to constitute themselves as Revolutionary Nationalists who gradually ascertained that the Congress as their predecessors had lost their appeal in contrast with them. So, Tilak was a harbinger of noticeable change in the texture of the Congress which shook off its earlier ideological predilections based on the Moderate methods of prayer, petition and protest or the inclinations which Aurobindo defined as ‘mendicant politics’. It was a new era in the Indian Nationalist campaign in which the conceptual contour of nationalism underwent a sea change. In Aurobindo’s assessment, Tilak was one of the rare Nationalists who, by conceptualising nationalism in a broader sense, also felt that the effectiveness of a political campaign drew on the socio-cultural confidence of a nation. Hence, he insisted on national education which was, for him, ‘the training of the young generation in the new national spirit to be the architects of liberty’ (653) which clearly shows that he was a pragmatic leader, being aware that for the development of such a mindset, what was required was to inculcate values, ideas and views meaningful to those born and nurtured in India; it was a caution to his colleagues who appeared to have been uncritically drawn to the Western discourses. Intrinsic to Tilak’s concern was the point that an imposed discourse was futile since it was alien to India’s socio-cultural context. Hence, he insisted on the creation of an indigenous discourse based on India’s distinct socio-cultural characteristics. What followed from this point was the articulation of the campaign as the one for Swaraj which meant ‘an actualizing of the national self-consciousness and the national will and the readiness to sacrifice which would fix them in the daily mind and daily life of the people’ (653). This is a three-dimensional concept: (a) it was a tool to evolve self-consciousness on the basis of India’s socio-cultural and intellectual heritage; the aim was to build a national will which Tilak articulated as a sense of determination to fight against the British rulers till the goal was accomplished; (b) Swaraj was also an inspirational device to prepare the participants for self-sacrifice; the aim here was similar since Swaraj was a goal, the accomplishment of this required unconditional devotion to the cause, and the participants were ready to pay any price for its attainment; and (c) it was also an

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instrument for inculcating and spreading the sense of sacrifice to the rest of the country because those who took part in the struggle for Swaraj set examples for the rest of the people by their steadfast commitment to the cause; practice was always a better means to convey the message than precepts. The discussion on Swaraj remains incomplete unless it is linked with his conceptualisation of boycott as complementary to the former. Boycott was an articulation of ‘a struggle between the two ideas in conflict, bureaucratic control national control’ (653–654). In other words, it was a tussle between the British commercial interests and the Nationalists’ determination to combat the design. Aurobindo knew that for the success of boycott as a mechanism, what was required was a sustained effort to prepare the Indians to accept the Nationalists’ campaign for the boycott of foreign clothes and other goods; otherwise, mere political speeches in its favour were futile. What is important is to point out that being a pragmatic Nationalist leader, Tilak understood that effective implementation of boycott was not so easily possible because (a) the foreign clothes were, for instance, cheaper than the khadi or homespun fabrics which meant that for most of the poor Indians, it would hardly have had the appeal that the Nationalists expected. One may refer to the warning of Rabindranath Tagore (1861– 1941) who expressed in clear terms in his novel Ghare Baire (1916) that boycott was a suicidal programme of the Swadeshi Nationalists and had adverse politico-ideological repercussions, especially among the poor Muslims in Bengal; and (b) hence, to him, the plan to jeopardise the British commercial interests in India did not seem to have been as effective as many of his Revolutionary Nationalist colleagues conceived. After a threadbare analysis of Tilak’s model of ‘cautionary’ nationalism, Aurobindo concluded that he left an imprint in India’s Nationalist campaign not because he devised ‘revolutionary methods or revolutionary idealism, but [because of] the clear sight and the direct propaganda and action of a patriotic leader insisting on the one thing needful and the straight way to drive at it’ (655). According to Aurobindo, there were two important characteristics in Tilak’s conceptualisation of nationalism which merit attention: he represented ‘an inflexible will of the patriot and man of sincere heart and thorough action which has been the very grain of his character’ (655–656); on the other hand, the readiness to sacrifice regardless of consequences was integral to Tilak’s idea of Nationalist commitment; ‘his firm courage’, argued Aurobindo, allowed him to nurture the determination to fight till the end, notwithstanding the counter-attack which Aurobindo explained by saying that Tilak was always ‘ready to return to the battle filled with scars as if nothing had happened’ (656). In his evaluation, Tilak thus stood out although Aurobindo was not entirely persuaded by

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his politico-ideological priorities. In contrast with the Moderate approach to anti-British struggle, Tilak’s contribution to nationalism was a complete break with the past for two critical reasons: first, he was perhaps one of those pioneers in the Nationalist campaign who thought out of the box by insisting that mere congregation of the Nationalists once a year was not, at all, adequate to spread the message of Swaraj or emancipation; by that, not only did he criticise the Moderate voice but also carved a space for the people to participate in the campaign for national liberation, though in a restricted sense then. Second, he was the one who also generated keen interest in India in exploring her socio-cultural and intellectual past as a great repository of wisdom. This was a revolutionary step, especially in light of the hegemony of the Western discourses; he thus created an Indian voice informed by Indian vocabulary which instantaneously connected the masses with the Nationalist struggle as history progressed. Tilak was thus a name ‘to be remembered gratefully’, exhorted Aurobindo, ‘so long as the country has pride in its past and hope for its future’ (657). In other words, by invoking the importance of the Bhagavad Gita in political mobilisation, Tilak represented an endeavour which grew in importance later, especially when Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore became the reigning ideological leaders of Indian nationalism. A detailed analytical account of the evolution of Tilak’s nationalism by Aurobindo was not just a description of an era of Nationalist struggle in India, it was also useful for comprehending the unfolding of nationalism in the years to come. By insisting that two ideas remained critical in Tilak’s approach to nationalism, Aurobindo put before us a new conceptualisation of nationalism that gained acceptance in the course of India’s struggle for freedom: first, ‘freedom of soul: life and action needed for the work she has to do for mankind’.11 This is one of the most perceptive ideas that influenced the politico-ideological priorities of those who led the freedom struggle in the successive years. Implicit here was Aurobindo’s reiteration of the conceptualisation of Purushartha which combines the care of the soul with the care of body and mind. Soul was the guiding force, as per Tilak and which Aurobindo endorsed, in setting human priorities. By tuning the soul to human well-being, Aurobindo reiterated the views expressed by Tilak. The second idea that also figured in Tilak’s nationalism was the responsibility of those being convinced of the importance of the soul of inculcating the same sentiment among the youth; otherwise, the entire endeavour was reduced to a futile exercise. What was critical here was the significance of spiritual commitment to the cause which was possible once the soul was awakened to its need. According to Aurobindo, these ‘two thoughts should govern our action, [and, only then] can the work done by Lokamanya Tilak find its true

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continuation … as sources of inspiration’ (660). In sum, Tilak provided Aurobindo with some of the ideas that he held dear while articulating his distinct conceptualisation of nationalism. As will be shown later, two important aspects of Tilak’s ideational framework remained critical to Aurobindo: (a) the importance of spiritualism, and (b) readiness to sacrifice for the cause. These ideas were dialectically interlinked since a strong spiritual commitment to freedom enabled one to be ready to sacrifice for the cause that one spontaneously adopted. By this conceptual notion, Aurobindo reiterated his primary concern to mobilise people for the battle that he waged against foreign hegemony. Like Tilak, Dayananda Saraswati (1824–1883) also influenced Aurobindo to a significant extent. While introducing the ascetic renouncer, Aurobindo thus justified why he was drawn to him because Dayananda represented a ‘hill’ in socio-cultural and politico-ideological terms that stands apart, piled up in sheer strength, as mass of bare and puissant granite, with verdure on its summit, a solitary pine jutting out into the blue, a great cascade of pure, vigorous and fertilizing water gushing out from its strength as a very fountain of life and health to the valley.12

Representing a source of endless energy by their realisation of the supreme soul guiding the universe, many great thinkers changed the course of human history. Dayananda was one of them who carved out a new narrative for humanity by refreshing our memory, argued Aurobindo, of the rich intellectual legacies of the past, codified in the transcendental texts of the Vedas and Upanishads. The argument is simple. As Aurobindo stated, instead of insisting on practising the Vedic or Upanishadic ‘rituals’, Dayananda put before those struggling for emancipation the importance of the ideas that were predominant in those nearly forgotten texts; they were not, at all, religious texts, as many conceived them contrarily, they were analytical accounts of different phases of India’s past in which innovative ideas were born out of the sustained ideational battles among those tuned to their concern for humanity as a whole. In order to expand his point, he further argued that Vivekananda (1863–1902) left an ideological imprint for posterity which inspired many of his contemporaries to get involved in the campaign for national liberation because the work that he left behind was ‘something leonine, grand, intuitive, upheaving that has entered the soul of India’ (662). Similarly, by his deeds and intellectual endeavour, Dayananda devised a model based on his politico-ideological priorities which made him, as per Aurobindo, ‘a soldier of Light, a warrior in God’s world, a sculptor of men and institutions, a bold and rugged victor of the

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difficulties which the matter presents to spirit’ (663). Having identified the distinctive characteristics, Aurobindo admired Dayananda as one who supplied the required spiritual–intellectual resources to the Indians which he explained as ‘the Aryan element’ (663). What was striking was his capability to creatively mix multiple ideas from India’s civilisational past to design his own model of rejuvenating a moribund nation like India. He accepted what he felt to be appropriate and then ‘masterfully shaped them into a form that he saw to be right’ (663). What it meant, as Aurobindo articulated, was that he was ‘not only plastic to the great hand of Nature, but asserted his own right and power to use Life and Nature as plastic material’ (663–664). That we failed to carry out the task following the path of his conceptualisation was evident when Aurobindo lamented that Dayananda’s ideas appeared to have lost their vitality due to ‘our insufficient spring of manhood and action’ (664). There are two levels at which Aurobindo pitched his assessment of Dayananda’s ideational proclivities. At a rather practical level, he was persuaded to believe that the aim of the ascetic saint was to reawaken the nation which, in his perception, was not adequately equipped to fight the alien ideational priorities, presumably because of the reluctance of the Indians to unearth their glorious intellectual legacies; at the spiritual level, he re-emphasised that Dayananda was perhaps one of those rare ideologues who ‘with a master-glance of practical intuition [laid a] strong spiritual foundation of being Indian by drawing to the very root of Indian life and culture’ (664), which he further metaphorically suggested was an attempt ‘to derive the flower of his first birth the seed for a radical new birth’ (664). Intrinsic here is the point that by drawing on India’s glorious past, Dayananda endeavoured to reinvigorate the Indians, who, according to him, by being forgetful of their roots appeared to have accepted the imposed ideas rather helplessly. It was he, through his creative interpretation of the Vedas in Satyartha Prakasha (The Light of Truth) which was published in 1875, reintroduced Indians to the Vedic texts that seemed to have lost their appeal, presumably because of the hegemony of idolatry and nonVedic ritualistic worship. It did not therefore seem odd when, seeking to champion his politico-ideological preferences, he claimed that I have not come to preach any dogma or religion, nor to establish a new order, nor be proclaimed a new Messiah or Pontiff. I have only brought before my people the light of the Vedic wisdom which has been hidden during the centuries of India’s thralldom.13

Persuaded to believe that Dayananda reiterated the ideas which were not foreign to India’s socio-cultural matrix, Aurobindo also underlined

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that he helped evolve Indians as a distinct socio-cultural entity which was defensible in the view of India’s rich intellectual heritage. In the consolidation of India as a nation, they were as important as the effort of the Nationalists who devoted themselves wholeheartedly to the struggle for emancipation. As a pragmatist to the core, Aurobindo was aware that mere ideological inspiration was not adequate to combat the mighty British rulers; what was important was also to mentally prepare those who took an oath to fight for India’s liberation. Hence, he argued that to be national is not to stand still. Rather to seize on a vital thing out of the past and throw it into the stream of modern life, is really the most powerful means of renovation and new creation. Dayananda’s work brings back such a principle and spirit of the past to vivify a modern mould. And observe that in the work as in the life it is the past caught in the first jet of its virgin vigour, pure from its sources, near to its root principle and therefore something eternal and always renewable. (665)

Dayananda was neither archaic in his thinking nor conservative in his attitude, argued Aurobindo. His contribution was of immense significance. He was one of the first of those Nationalist thinkers who forcibly argued that India’s past was an important resource for intellectual rejuvenation; it was necessary for two reasons: (a) by re-emphasising the point that India had a powerful intellectual tradition long before the rest of the world even could contemplate, the ascetic sannyasi not only attacked Indians’ inferiority complex but also effectively challenged the servile mindset that appeared to have flourished in colonial India; and (b) by characterising these ideas as ‘eternal’ and ‘renewable’, he emphasised that they were not untenable simply because they had completely different contextual roots. Instead, he argued that, since they were integrally linked with the Indian socio-cultural realities, they continued to be relevant in the shaping of Indians’ approach to humanity and the environment. In other words, as they were eternal, in Aurobindo’s perception, that they had relevance in conceptualising humanity across phases of history did not require an explanation. For Aurobindo, Dayananda was not just a thinker who devised inspirational ideas, he was also a practitioner who designed a model of action to attain the objectives. The ideas that he articulated did not seem to have come from ‘the terrestrial word’ (665) but were based on those eternal qualities stemming from human experiences across various phases of human history. In Dayananda’s conceptualisation, these ideas represented ‘the spirit of the Aryan worker’ by which he meant sincerity, honesty and commitment (665). They were eternal to

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human existence as they were instinctive to human beings. Aurobindo thus built his argument on this assumption by saying that Nature always recognizes a clear, honest and recognizable knock at her doors and gives the result with an answering scrupulosity and diligence. And it is good that the spirit of the Master should leave its trace in his followers, that somewhere in India there should be a body of whom it can be said that when a work is seen to be necessary and right, the men will be forthcoming, the means forthcoming and that work will surely be done. (665)

Distinctive here was Aurobindo’s belief that Dayananda represented a wave of thinking which was based on a claim that many human qualities were transmitted from one generation of humanity to another; and if that be so, human beings imbibed those qualities instinctively. While elaborating on how he understood the politico-ideological preferences of Dayananda, he further argued that what he did was simply to bring back the lost ideas as they were dismissed as archaic and backwardlooking. It was Dayananda, who, in his Satyartha Prakasha, reiterated them as he felt that they were potentially strong enough to rekindle the Nationalist zeal. By emphasizing these, he attained two objectives: on the one hand, he countered the criticism that Dayananda was primordial in his approach to human history, and he thus justified, on the other hand, that he remained pertinent in conceptualising nationalism even in the changed socio-economic and politico-cultural milieu. By insisting that the ideas he propagated were eternal, he also questioned the critics for having dismissed them as irrelevant. For instance, when Dayananda emphasised the criticality of truth in building a nation, he drew on an axiomatic claim shaping human behaviour in different civilisational milieux. Dayananda’s call for the revival of Vedic nationalism in the country had an electrifying impact on the psyche of the masses in northern and western India. It seemed as if people had found what they had been searching for amid the all-pervading darkness that colonial rule had brought in. Even in the parts of the country where it was assumed that Dayananda’s activities had no direct influence on the people, they surely created an ambience that invigorated people to embark upon a subtle rise against British colonialism. In assessing the impact on the people of Dayananda’s efforts and his organisation, an analyst wrote candidly, how great an uplifter of the peoples he was – in fact the most vigorous force of the immediate and present action in India at the moment of the rebirth and reawakening of the national consciousness. His Arya Samaj, whether he wished it or not, prepared the way in 1905

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for the revolt in Bengal. He was one of the most ardent prophets of reconstruction and of national organization. I feel that it was he who kept the vigil.14

By shaping his vision based on Vedic precepts, Dayananda targeted the weakest point of the Hindu mindset to help the community regain its lost self-respect. Before the invasions, the Vedas were held in high esteem by the Hindu community and seen as authorless and eternal pearls of wisdom, divine in nature. But during the long years of being ruled by foreign invaders, the Hindus were on the verge of losing their faith in the Vedas, and for that matter, in all that constituted the bases of their glorious past. In such a scenario, the arrival of Dayananda set the Hindus on a path of emancipation that eventually resulted in the rise of Indian nationalism. Pointing out the seminal contribution of Dayananda, Rabindranath Tagore writes, Swami Dayananda, the great path-maker in modern India, who through bewildering tangles of creeds and practices – the dense undergrowth of the degenerate days of the country – created a straight path that was meant to lead the Hindus to a simple and rational life of devotion to God and service for man. With a clear-sighted vision of truth and courage of determination, he preached and worked for our self-respect and vigorous awakening of minds that could strive for a harmonious adjustment with the progressive spirit of the modern age and at the same time keep in perfect touch with that glorious past of India when it revealed its personality in freedom of thought and action, in an unclouded radiance of spiritual realization.15

The Vedic revivalism of Dayananda had the magical impact of liberating the minds of the people of India from colonial rhetoric by restoring their faith in the glory of their ancient scriptures. The people were convinced that the Vedas had the power to be the foundational framework of life in the country. Notwithstanding the fact that over the years the significance of these scriptures had waned, their value as a moral beacon had remained intact. Moreover, by calling for Vedic nationalism, Dayananda also tried to provide a common ground for the Hindus to come together for the cause of their nationhood. Recognising his contribution to the arousal of national feeling in the country, S.S. Jayaswal writes clearly, The Sannyasi Dayananda gave freedom to the soul of the Hindu, as Luther did to the European. And he forged that freedom from inside, that is, from Hindu literature itself…. Dayananda was not only the greatest Indian of the nineteenth century… In the nineteenth century

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there was nowhere else such a powerful teacher of monotheism, such a preacher of the unity of man, such a successful crusader against capitalism in spirituality. (45)

Dayananda’s efforts had laid the foundations of the cultural, religious and spiritual awakening of the Hindus of India. The line of argument advanced by the Nationalist historians has been that since the alien rulers had systematically brought about in the Hindu community the loss of their pride, cultural richness, spiritual refinement and religious chastity, the community did not have anything to fall back on to reconstruct their national personality, and so, the onerous efforts of Dayananda could not have taken any form other than to call for the revival of the ancient Indian values, scriptures and wisdom. At the same time, though Dayananda did not have in his mind any animosity towards the alien rulers, there was no doubt that any reference to the fall of Indian glory would not have been complete without remote references to such rulers. But, in the main, Dayananda’s major thrust had been to promote a sense of self-respect and pride among the people of India for their glorious past. Despite being an ascetic sannyasi, Dayananda was thus hailed by Aurobindo as one of the most prominent ideologues of nationalism since he provided rare insights to develop the Nationalist spirit, not by being drawn to the Western discourses, but by being sensitive to the indigenous sources of wisdom which received almost no attention in the Moderate phase of the Indian Nationalist campaign. By exposing the exploitative character of British colonialism, Moderate thinkers, like Dadabhai Naoroji and R.C. Dutt among others, highlighted one aspect of foreign rule; it was Dayananda who prepared an emotional template to rouse and consolidate the Nationalist spirit. It is true that when his Satyartha Prakash was published in 1875, it hardly provoked any interest and was dismissed as an attempt to conceptualise nationalism in terms of an ideational mode which was not only impertinent but also inappropriate in India at that time. Strangely, the Moderates also acquiesced with the propaganda when Dayananda put forward his views in the public domain. While being involved in the Nationalist campaign, Aurobindo, by being inspired by Dayananda’s insightful ideas, seemed to have found an Indian voice in his thinking. According to him, the Vedas and Upanishads were two critical sources of India’s civilisational ethos which unfolded in the powerful commentaries of Dayananda. He further argued that what he did was an expansion of the design that was articulated by Rammohun Roy, who, by drawing on the Vedas and Upanishadic texts, tried to develop a counter-intellectual discourse, primarily to argue against those uncritically championing the Western

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discourses, that India’s intellectual discourses were equally rich and pertinent to understand her distinct socio-economic reality and politicocultural preferences. What separates Rammohun from Dayananda is the fact that while the former endeavoured to creatively amalgamate the Western discourses with their indigenous counterparts, the latter concentrated on the Vedas on the basis of his belief that those tracts were useful for recharging the almost intellectually dead nation in view of the consolidation of the hegemony of the ideas emerging out of an alien socio-economic and politico-cultural context. By emphasizing that ‘our true original seed was’, argued Aurobindo, ‘the Vedas [which] he derived by being intuitive’.16 Aurobindo re-emphasised the importance of these ancient texts in generating a sense of belonging among the Indians because of their similar intellectual roots. One may, however, add a caveat here: By being so vocal about Vedas as sources of inspiration, wasn’t he supportive of religious nationalism or, to be precise, Hindu nationalism? The argument appears to be valid on the surface, although a deep reading of Aurobindo’s thoughts and ideas in their entirety leads us to a different conclusion. As he was a child of his time, he did not seem to pay much attention to the starkly different religious identities of myriad communities in India. Furthermore, despite having endorsed the claim that Hindu–Muslim amity was a requisite condition for a successful Nationalist mobilisation in India, he, however, strongly felt that perhaps the Vedas and Upanishads had a more wide-reaching impact than any of the other texts that evolved in India. According to him, these ancient texts were not meant for specific religious communities; they were, instead, documents of many historical phases of human progress, unlike the holy books of other religious groups. Here, he appeared to have anticipated Rabindranath Tagore, who, in his 1932 Hibbert Lecture, entitled ‘The Religion of Man’, reiterated the view by saying that it was conceptually wrong to put these texts in a box since they entailed ideas stemming out of experiences of human beings in various stages of their development. Aurobindo devised his own mode of nationalising the nation. Unlike Lajpat Rai, who always favoured the Hindu Nationalist approach to nationalism, Aurobindo never appreciated the idea; instead, he evolved a formula in which the combined strength of the Hindus and Muslims was appreciated. As one who supported history being contextual, Aurobindo thus argued that Hindu nationalism did not seem to be appropriate in India in view of the significant presence of the Muslims. Hence, he argued that ‘Hindu nationalism had a meaning in the times of Shivaji and Ramdas, when the object of national revival was to overthrow a Mahommedan domination which, once tending to Indian unity and toleration, had become oppressive and disruptive’.17 With this in view, he thus suggested a new mode of conceptualising

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nations by taking both Hindus and Muslims on board. Desiring to evolve a consensus among the Hindus and Muslims on this issue, he made a very perceptive comment by underlining that [o]ur ideal therefore is an Indian Nationalism, largely Hindu in its spirit and traditions, because the Hindu made the land and the people and persists, by the greatness of his past, his civilization and his culture and his invincible virility, in holding it, but wide enough to include the Moslem and huis’ culture and traditions and absorb them into itself.18

The main philosophical standpoint through which Aurobindo articulated his ideas and opinions on different aspects of public life of the people of India is generally known as political Vedantism. There can be no denying the fact that Aurobindo was overwhelmingly influenced by the Vedantic philosophy reflected previously in the critical analysis of the problems of India by Vivekananda. But the major distinction between the two illustrious Nationalist scholars of the country is that while Vivekananda made utmost efforts to recuse himself from the thick and thin of Indian politics and confined his sermons and preaching to the social and religious reforms in the country, Aurobindo was an out and out political personality whose initiation in the vortex of the Indian national movement was premised on his revolutionary orientations. In fact, politics appeared to be primary in the thought process of Aurobindo, and the spiritualism of Vedantic philosophy pervaded his ideas. By uncritically accepting the ideas of Dayananda’s Satyartha Prakash, Aurobindo put forward a point of view that figured prominently in the future Nationalist discourses in India. His appreciative views were articulated when he mentioned that in the matter of Vedic interpretation, I am convinced that whatever be the final complete interpretation, Dayananda will be honoured as the first discoverer of right clues. Amidst the chaos and obscurity of old ignorance and age-long misunderstanding his was the eye of direct vision that pierced to the truth and fastened on that which was essential. He has found the keys of the doors that time had closed and rent asunder to the seals of the imprisoned fountains.19

There is, however, a misconception that only the urge to draw upon these ancient texts was confined to the Revolutionary Nationalists, and by being a leading ideologue of this stream of nationalism, Aurobindo drew on them to build his defence. A surface reading of this accusation may lead one to wrongly accept that it was so. A deeper understanding

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of the Nationalist campaign in India, even during the era when Gandhi reigned supreme, reveals these texts were as important in political mobilisation as in the past. In that sense, it is fair to argue that Indian nationalism has always had a spiritual base. One of the reasons which explains why Rabindranath Tagore also appreciated the Mahatma, who was admired as the greatest human being in the known history of human civilisation, was that he too realised that the Vedas and Upanishads were not, at all, religious texts; instead, they were articulation of human experiences as humanity progressed in history. For Aurobindo, these texts were instrumental in effective political mobilisation and it was proved during the Swadeshi Movement (1905–1908) when the Swadeshi activists were inspired by being drawn to the importance of mankind which these texts championed. Although the Swadeshi campaign was later criticised as a campaign of the Hindus, which Rabindranath Tagore had shown in his novel, Ghare Baire (1916), it also demonstrated how these texts were critical in integrating Nationalists for the Swadeshi cause from across Bengal. It had adverse consequences as well, and the Muslims were alienated by apprehending that since the Swadeshi campaign was highly Hinduised, it was not, at all, useful for safeguarding their socio-economic and politicocultural interests. Despite being critical of those who characterised the campaign as discriminatory, Aurobindo was unable to defuse the charge, presumably because the root of communal schism went, by then, far deeper than he conceived. Nonetheless, so long as he was active as a member of revolutionary nationalism, he held onto his belief in these ancient texts since they, to him, remained sources of sustained inspiration. In fact, it will not be an out-of-place comment that he continued to explore various aspects of these texts even after he dissociated himself completely from Nationalist politics in 1910 and started a new phase of his life in the French colony, Pondicherry (now Puducherry). Despite his radical transformation in 1910, the fact that he continued to remain interested in the Vedas and Upanishads substantiates the argument that Dayananda left an indelible imprint in his ideational universe which was also intellectually rejuvenating when he was far away from India’s Nationalist movement for liberation. Furthermore, it is also fair to argue that Aurobindo’s endeavour was not ‘a stand-alone’ effort since many of his colleagues who were prominent in the conceptualisation of revolutionary nationalism as a contrarian voice vis-à-vis the Moderate Nationalists, held identical views. This was significant, especially in the ideational battle that the Christian missionaries waged to demean India’s intellectual heritage. And, Aurobindo, by championing the Vedas and Upanishads as powerful voices of India’s rich past, played an immensely significant historical

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role which was timely and also effective in designing an alternative ideational mould of nationalism in India. Of the trio, Lal-Bal-Pal, Bipin Chandra Pal was hailed by Aurobindo as ‘the prophet of nationalism’.20 On his release from jail in March 1908, Aurobindo, while appreciating his contribution to the Nationalist cause, further added that he was the speaker of a God-given message; not the man, but the voice of the Gospel of Nationalism. He come to us purified by an act of selfimmolation, with a soul deepened by long hours of solitude and selfcommunication to repeat the world of hope and inspiration, to call us once more to the task of national self-realization. (914)

According to Aurobindo, Pal represented hope, inspiration and selfrealisation which he characterised as the gospel of nationalism. In two complementary ways, he admired the critical role that Pal played in rejuvenating the nation for the ensuing struggle for emancipation against the British. The task was easy to accomplish if one was ready to sacrifice for the nation; his ideas were thus electrifying, argued Aurobindo, at a time of India’s national history when pessimism appeared to have gripped the nation. He thus took upon himself the responsibility of reawakening the nation in the face of British torture and also the failure of the Moderate Nationalists in associating the people with the national struggle. Aurobindo did not doubt that Pal was the right leader to undertake this task which he clarified when he declared that ‘now that Bipin Chandra is coming out of prison, we look to his triumphant oratory, the Pythian inspiration of his matchless eloquence to reawaken the spirit of lofty idealism … by the prophet of nationalism in a voice through which God has more than once spoken’ (913). The claim that Pal was one of the most persuasive speakers in galvanising the masses for the campaign against foreign hegemony was further elaborated by him when he suggested that ‘Pal stands before India as the exponent of the spiritual force of the movement, its pure “Indianity”, its devotion to principle, that has been the kernel of his teaching, the secret of the almost miraculous force which often breathed from his eloquence’ (913–914). For Aurobindo to develop his distinct model of nationalism, Pal was one of the important architects in two complementary ways: first, it was Pal who, by Indianising the voice of nationalism, put an alternative mode of protest in contrast with the Moderates’ version of nationalism. He was the one who also drew on India’s intellectual heritage to rejuvenate the participants in the Nationalist campaign; it was a new design which grew in importance as history progressed. Second,

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Aurobindo also underlined the importance of his eloquent speeches in political mobilisation against foreign hegemony. He was an electrifying speaker who easily conveyed the Nationalist message to those attending his public speeches, presumably because he couched his arguments in a language which was intelligible to all. As the Moderate leaders always spoke in English and referred to English ideological texts, they never became popular speakers like their revolutionary counterparts. The other thinker who influenced Aurobindo significantly was Ramesh Chunder Dutt, popularly known as R.C. Dutt (1848–1909); he wrote one of the most persuasive accounts of the nature and consequences of British exploitation of India which helped the colonisers feed the Industrial Revolution in England. Like Dadabhai Naoroji, who articulated his assessment of colonial rule in India in his Poverty and Un-British Rule in India (1901), he too argued that British governance contributed to India’s poverty which was contrary to the core principles of the philosophy of Enlightenment. Dutt drew the same conclusion in The Economic History of India (1893) with his suggestions for arresting the pauperisation of India within British rule. In view of the milieu in which he codified his ideas, it was perhaps not conducive to the articulation of ideas in support of the replacement of the alien administration. His ideas centred on the hope that the more the Indians were involved in governance, the less would be the trouble of the ruled. The logic was simple: since the Indians knew the country better than their rulers, they were well equipped to identify the areas in the country which were prone to famine, for instance. Furthermore, with their association with the administration, they were of help in directing the government in spending money where it was required most. Hence, in his account, Dutt made useful suggestions to make the administration complementary to the improvement of the colonised as a whole. He thus insisted that two essential reforms the reign of Queen Victoria has not witnessed. It has not admitted the people of India to any share in the control and direction of the administration of their own affairs. And, it has not improved the material condition of the mass of the people, or protected the country from those frequent, fatal and widespread famines which have now disappeared from all other lands of civilized administrations. The history of British rule in India repeats the lesson which history has taught us that it is impossible to govern a country in the interests of the people without bestowing on that people some degree of self-government and representation.21

A careful analysis of Dutt’s assessment reveals that one of the reasons for India becoming poverty-stricken was the failure of the foreign

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rulers to accommodate Indians in the governance of the country. As he believed, the involvement of the Indians helped the rulers not only run the administration efficiently but also assisted them in devising perhaps the most effective ways of mitigating the situation leading to famine and other serious issues which were responsible for India’s poverty. His arguments were thus directed at involving the Indians in governance which was at that time a radical suggestion though demands were made in the political circle for the sharing of powers with the indigenous population by the British rulers. Persuaded to firmly believe this idea, Dutt reiterated the point while concluding the second volume of his The Economic History of India which clearly stipulated that from whatever point we view this grave question we arrive at the ultimate truth – a truth which Englishmen know better than any other nation on earth – that it is impossible to make Indian administration successful and the Indian people prosperous without admitting the people to share in the control of their own affairs. (429)

Ideationally, the above is a repetition of what he stated earlier. He attributed India’s poverty to the lack of adequate administrative acumen of the foreign rulers to comprehend India’s socio-economic problems. Here, the assistance by the Indians was of great help. In Dutt’s formulation, the economic crises could easily be tackled with the mere tweaking of administration. Whether it was effective or not does not have an easy answer. Nonetheless, it was a testimony of the growing support for the demand for self-government and representation which became a reality by the early part of the 20th century. Hence, it can be fairly argued that R.C. Dutt, in the garb of an analysis of India’s economic ills, pursued a political point of view which received attention from Aurobindo and his colleagues in a milieu in which the demand for freedom or political emancipation was being seriously made. Here, a comparison between Dutt’s account and that of Dadabhai Naoroji shall reinforce the point beyond doubt. In his Poverty and Un-British Rule in India (1901), Naoroji remarked that ‘the British people stand charged with the blood of perishing millions and the starvation of score of millions’.22 The consequences were disastrous since those who suffered would hit back soon to fulfil their legitimate demands. It was evident when he further argued that with the inhuman policies, the English governance is sowing bitter seeds; and although their bitter fruit may not be reaped in our time, the bitter fruit must and will come in some form or other.… What will naturally happen will be secret societies and assassination.… In the midst of the hundreds of millions, the European Civilian

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population will be swept away. You have had some experience of it in that unfortunate mutiny of 1857.23

It was a bold statement in the high noon of the empire which led Jawaharlal Nehru to hail his contribution as ‘revolutionary’ and ‘pathbreaking’. Not only did he give a political and economic foundation to Indian nationalism, Nehru further argued that ‘it required marvellous courage for any man to say openly that the British rule was responsible for India’s socio-economic decay … when even to whisper a thing like that was considered sedition’.24 What was emphasised here was how economic issues played critical roles in political mobilisation. And, both Dutt and Naoroji warned the British rulers of the adverse consequences of bad governance leading to the suffering of the millions of the ruled. Ideationally, they were Moderates as both of them believed in peaceful agitation which they always preferred to brute physical force when possible. Implicit here are the roots of nationalism in future India. It would not be an exaggeration to suggest that they not only anticipated the inadequacies of Moderate techniques but were also aware of the articulation of the Nationalist voice in a completely new fashion. There is, therefore, substance in the point that Dutt and Naoroji, despite being loyalists, attempted to carve out a narrative which was useful to understand the language of protest based on their commitment to liberal constitutionalism. Aurobindo’s assessment of the contribution of Dutt and Naoroji reflects that he, at one level, was not impressed by their role in the articulation and consolidation of India’s Nationalist voice; at another level, he also appreciated their intervention as they helped posterity conceptualise how British rule contributed to India’s socio-economic decay. They were, according to him, well-read litterateur, the Oriental scholar, the journalist proficient in English and of Western ideas, the professional men successful and sleek [but were distinct] for the lack of height, depth and breadth in their culture and atoning for the unoriginal imitativeness to which they were doomed by the fidelity in detail and framework of the imitation!25

It was perhaps the most hard-hitting criticism that Aurobindo made of fellow Nationalists who pursued the goal in their own specific ways. This was based on his view that Moderates had not played the role that they were expected to, presumably because they wanted to enjoy both: on the one hand, they were too scared to annoy the rulers, and, on the other, they too wanted to bask in the glory of being a Nationalist. Aurobindo disliked their duality and was scathing in his criticism.

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According to him, neither Dutt nor Naoroji were original thinkers; they saw the Indian issues reflected in the British constitutional mirror; hence, their assessment was anything but original. In his words, ‘of all the great Bengalis of his time, Romesh Dutt was perhaps the least original … though he stood for a time foremost among the most active of Congress politicians’ (677). Despite having mentioned that Dutt’s Economic History was a good ‘imitative interpretation of India’s economic difficulties’ (678), Aurobindo criticised Dutt for having accepted the derivative conceptual framework to understand Indian realities. He was clueless as to why Dutt translated the Rig Veda when he was not well versed in the Sanskrit language although he admired his ‘history of ancient Indian civilization [which he characterised as] a masterly compilation [but] void of original research which is rapidly growing antiquated’ (678). Aurobindo did not lose sight of his contribution even by translating Indian holy texts and epics because his translated versions acquainted ordinary readers in England with India’s rich intellectual heritage. Hence, Dutt was hailed by Aurobindo as having done ‘an immense amount of spadework by which future will benefit’ (679). So far, he subjected Dutt to rigorous scrutiny which led one to conclude that he did not intellectually excite Aurobindo. Despite his scathing criticisms, Aurobindo also gave the devil his due since he appreciated Dutt as ‘a good journalist and pamphleteer’ (678). Here, he hardly qualified his admiration since he also highlighted that Dutt’s pamphlet not only exposed the limitations of the British plan for dividing Bengal into two for administrative convenience but also helped prepare ‘public opinion in India irretrievably and nobody cared to consider [the then Governor-General of India], Lord Curzon’s answer’ (678). Hence, in the end, he came out with the statement that ‘the gifts that Romesh Dutt possessed are not to be despised. Especially did his untiring capacity for work and his joyous vitality and indestructible buoyancy make him a towering reproach to the indolent, listless, sneering and anaemic generation that intervened between him and the recent renascence’ (679). Aurobindo’s review of R.C. Dutt’s contribution is useful in conceptualising how he developed his own approach to nationalism. Being critical of his intellectual effort, he still accepted him as one of those Moderate Nationalists who endeavoured to understand why Indians suffered most at the behest of the British rulers. The argument was based on the familiar assumption that it was most probable, and a deviation from this was an aberration of history. Nonetheless, the descriptive account of the processes clarified that the British rule was exploitative although he did not go to the extent of condemning the governance as contrary to a civilised system of administration.

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Aurobindo found in Naoroji’s work a distinct path for India’s emancipation since he conceptualised the alien rule as ‘un-British’, for it not only overturned the fundamental principles on which colonialism was supposed to have rested but also indulged in practices which were contrary to the core ideas of the philosophy of Enlightenment. In this sense, he foresaw the politico-ideological views of both Rabindranath Tagore and Gandhi who also thought alike at the beginning of their interventions in the public domain. For Dutt, Aurobindo was restrained as he was not convinced that his contribution was very useful in understanding the theme of India’s economic ailment. By being appreciative of the pamphlets that Dutt wrote to counter Curzon’s argument for the partition of Bengal during the Swadeshi campaign, it did not escape Aurobindo’s notice that Dutt played a useful role. It can thus be concluded that Aurobindo not only reviewed the contributions of his predecessors but also took them into account while developing his distinct model of nationalism at a critical juncture of India’s Nationalist campaign. His was a unique mode of the anti-British campaign that was a departure from the past—by being critical of the Moderate approach to ventilating Nationalist grievances, he devised his design to directly attack the British interests in India. He was, of course, not alone in pursuing such a mode of defiance; some like-minded colleagues stood by him amid brutalities unleashed by the British authority.

Aurobindo’s Conceptualisation of Nationalism As mentioned earlier, Aurobindo was an integral part of the politico-ideological preferences that Lal-Bal-Pal articulated. His conceptualisation of nationalism was a break with the Moderate version for it also included many concrete steps to establish that Indians were not mendicants—they were capable of defending their rights on their own. The 1907 Surat Congress was a watershed in Indian Nationalist history because the Revolutionary Nationalists upheld their politicoideological priorities vis-à-vis colonialism in contrast with those of the Moderates. The core idea was that the Nationalists, in order to attain political emancipation, were ready to resort to any means, including violence. It was a new era in Indian nationalism when the erstwhile Moderate Nationalists seemed to have been shown the door. Nonetheless, the Revolutionary Nationalists recognised the contribution of their predecessors who were also hailed as having prepared a mindset opposed to British rule, although their opposition was confined to peaceful liberal-constitutional means. As shown above, Bankim, Tilak, Dayananda, Dadabhai Naoroji and R.C. Dutt played a critical role in

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shaping Aurobindo’s notion of nationalism. Along with him, Lal-BalPal also provided critical inputs in formulating a contrarian mode of challenging foreign rule in India. Unlike them, Aurobindo was in favour of wresting political freedom from the British by devising plans and programmes to directly harm the rulers. His regular write-ups in the weekly Bande Mataram were a testimony of this claim, as will be shown below. Before we identify the characteristic features of Aurobindo’s idea of nationalism, we must draw our attention to the intellectual perspective that Lala Lajpat Rai set out for the new conceptualisation of nationalism. In his Unhappy India, published in 1928, Rai spelt out why Moderate nationalism was a surrender to the colonised and revolutionary nationalism was a means to liberate from the yoke of foreign rule. Fundamental here was his opposition to political subjection and the reasons accountable for this. According to him, political subjection is the publishment of social evils and national crimes, but once imposed, it adds to their volume and intensity. It effectively checks any rejuvenation or reconstruction. It accentuates social evils and weaknesses. It leads to poverty in all its hideous forms, mental, moral and physical. If ever an awakening comes, it is delayed or checked and crushed by all the forces of law and diplomacy and of cunning and fraud. It is a part of the imperial game to paint the subject people in the blackest colours, and to slander and libel them most shamelessly. The object is to produce and perpetuate the mentality of the subject people, and to obtain the moral sanction of the rest of the world for usurping the rights, properties and liberties of other people. This is the genesis of the cult of white man’s burden. This is the mentality which stimulates the Empire-builder. This is the material with which the ‘steel frames’ are forged to keep the subject people in bondage and prevent them from doing harm to themselves, by aspiring to, and working for their freedom. That is how Britain made her Empire in India.26

Rai’s elaboration of the perspective was most persuasive and helpful in understanding the nature of nationalism that emerged preceding the Moderate phase of Indian nationalism. Three points merit attention for conceptualising Aurobindo’s understanding of the phenomenon: first, political subjection was a serious limitation for a collectivity to rise with dignity and elan. Hence, it was logical that Rai and his Revolutionary Nationalist colleagues questioned the British endeavour of chaining Indians for the benefit of the colonisers. Second, in order to sustain control, two mechanisms were put in place to ensure subjection: on the one hand,

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there was a systematic campaign that the colonised were incapable of governing themselves and hence, the presence of the British rulers was a boon in disguise. It was nurtured by developing an appropriate system of education; Macaulay’s Minutes of 1835 which established English education in India was thus strategically devised to fulfil the rulers’ aim. On the other hand, by creating a steel frame of governance (the Indian Civil Service), the hegemony was reinforced not by the British officers alone but by allowing the loyalist and competent Indians who were ‘Indian in colour but British in taste and character’ to be integrated with the administration. Finally, with these systems in place, the British rulers proved to the Indian subjects that by being colonised, the white races actually fulfilled a role in civilizing them. They took upon themselves the responsibility of making the Indians or members of other colonies ‘civilised’ in accordance with the well-established parameters of civilisation. The above is a well-articulated explanation of how colonisers justified their motives. What was surprising to Rai was how the colonised happily accepted the chains as a means of their salvation. Here, he attributed the colonial success to the processes of ‘imperial hypnotism and of sophisticated, well-organised and well-planned propaganda that the subjects themselves, while disgusted with their chained life, are yet afraid of freedom’ (xvii). He was hopeful that it was a temporary phase of human history because it was difficult for the rulers to befool the ruled endlessly, as history demonstrated. Rai also drew attention to the Hindu–Muslim interpersonal relationships which remained an important source of alienation of one community from another. Here, the role of the colonisers was visible since, as he argued, the policy of divide and rule – divide et impera – is the sheet anchor of all imperial governments. British rule in India has been persistently following that policy. The evidence of British official records is conclusive on this point. In the earlier phase, the slogan was ‘Mussalmans must be suppressed’ – today, it is, ‘they must be won over and pitted against the nationalists’. (400)

This is probably the most explicitly articulated explanation of the divideand-rule strategy that the British rulers deployed to maintain their political hegemony in India. The British established their governance by defeating the Muslim rulers, and hence, they were enemies at the outset; later on, with the rise of the Nationalist fervour cutting across the socio-culturally disparate communities, Muslims were identified by the rulers as an ally and thus adopted steps to dissociate them from their Hindu counterparts. The policy was strategically designed which led Rai to state that

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no one with a close acquaintance with Indian affairs will be prepared to deny that on the whole there is a predominant bias in British officialdom in favour of the Muslim community, partly on the ground of closer sympathy but more largely as a make-weight against Hindu nationalism. (409–410)

The narrative is complete for two reasons: first, what Rai referred to for situating his explanation of the phenomenon of nationalism did not seem to be different from what Aurobindo meant. It was logically possible to conceive that as Aurobindo believed in the Revolutionary Nationalists’ politico-ideological predilections, there were hardly any differences between them in so far as the conceptualisation of the phenomenon was concerned. Like Rai, Aurobindo also strongly felt that the Hindu–Muslim schism was a deterrent to the consolidation of the Nationalists for a common cause. As history shows, they were right in their assessment since India’s independence in 1947 was marred by her dismemberment into two sovereign nations, India and Pakistan. Second, many of the politico-ideological issues that figured in Rai’s discussion of how nationalism evolved and became a rallying point for many were also dealt with by Aurobindo while he was building his own model of nationalism; the latter was not qualitatively different but was broadened by linking it with India’s rich intellectual past. In Aurobindo’s conceptualisation, the Ramayana, Mahabharata, Vedas and Upanishads formed the nucleus of his understanding of the phenomenon. At the outset of Aurobindo’s endeavour in this direction, he exposed the limitations of the erstwhile Nationalists who were Loyalists par excellence which he articulated by stating that ‘there is plenty of selfishness, prudence, hesitating calculation in the country, plenty of fear and demoralization in the older generation. [Instead,] … steadfastness, courage, a calm and high spirit are what we now need, wisdom to plan and act and not prudence to abstain from action’.27 An activist or karmayogi to the core, Aurobindo laid the foundation of his conceptual priorities: contrary to verbose speeches which the Moderate leaders were best at doing, he was in favour of being steadfastly committed to the cause since he believed that Indians lost precious time by trying the liberal-constitutional method of wresting benefits for the colonised. What was required to be done was to act based on planning and calculations. Given his priorities, he thus mentioned that ‘nationalism tempered by expediency is like the French despotism tempered by epigrams’ (91). Unless the actions of the Nationalists were calculably directed towards the goal of liberation, nationalism remained a vacuous conceptual tool. We must add a caveat here because, by nationalism, Aurobindo

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never meant the processes of essentialising disparate socio-cultural identities of the Indians which, according to him, were suicidal; in its place, he conceptualised nationalism as an instrument for political mobilisation against the foreign rulers. In other words, according to him, nationalism was an attempt to build an emotional bond among the participants who were drawn to the battle for emancipation from alien governance. It was thus a unifying political tool seeking to bring together people from across the country for a common cause. It was, in other words, a powerful voice in favour of distinct politico-ideological priorities which those fighting for their own political salvation readily accepted and endorsed. Nationalism was not just a political tool; it was also a device for the spiritual awakening of India which was possible only with the awakening of India’s soul. This is not a conventional mode of explaining nationalism since spiritual awakening involved the realisation of joy or ananda in its real connotation. In Aurobindo’s formulation, ‘it is for ananda that the world exists’ (61). Here ananda did not simply mean joy but the manifestation of life ‘in all the manifold forms of activity in which man seeks to express the strength and delight of the expansive spirit within’ (61). In two ways, this was realised, as per Aurobindo. At one level, individual satisfaction was critical provided it contributed, at another level, to the development and well-being of the nation which meant that individual satisfaction and national well-being were coterminous. By pursuing this axiomatic principle, he assessed the nature of the campaigns directed for national liberation: if it was imitative, imported, artificial, then, whatever temporary success it may have, the nation is moving towards self-sterilization and death; … if, on the other hand, the peculiar individuality of a race stamps itself on the movement in its every part and seizes on every new development as a means of self-expression, then the nation wakes, lives and grows and whatever the revolutions and changes on political, social or intellectual forms and institutions, it is assured of its survival and aggrandizement.28

Intrinsic here is an argument couched in the spiritual-political vision that Aurobindo articulated. Being critical of Moderate nationalism as it was imitative and drew on the derivative liberal-constitutional means of the Western variety, he knew that it was not adequate to bring about ananda for all. The thought was restrictive since it was anything but rooted in old Indian socio-cultural traditions. Here, Aurobindo defended his point by referring to the Bhagavad Gita’s dictum, namely, death for protecting one’s own dharma was better than the elusive hope

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of fulfilling one’s desire by following others’ dharma. For death, argued Aurobindo, in one’s own dharma ‘brings new birth, success in an alien path means only successful suicide’ (62). With a rigorous analysis of the movements in 19th-century India, he expressed firmly that none of the ideologues ever thought of coming out of a shell of imitation which not only meant mental bankruptcy but also the inability to comprehend the weaknesses of blind imitation of the Western discourses in conceptualising the indigenous socio-economic and politico-cultural issues. It was an aspect of national life which was, however, strongly countered by, as Aurobindo referred to an undercurrent, the peculiar temperament and vitality of India struggling for self-preservation under a load of foreign ideas and foreign forms, and it was not till in the struggle between these two elements the balance turned in the favour of the national dharma that the salvation of India was assured. (62)

Two sub-arguments were made here: on the one hand, it was emphasised that despite the apparent hegemony of foreign ideas, there was still a wave of thinking questioning them; on the other hand, once the battle for self-preservation prevailed over the interference of forces from outside, half the task was accomplished, felt Aurobindo. In order to illustrate his views, he referred to the growing acceptance of Vivekananda by the masses of people, which demonstrated that Indians realised that the indigenous wisdom was equally powerful to win over the rest of the world; it was with Vivekananda’s initiative that the world knew that India had, at her possession, a gold mine of ideas for the wellbeing of humanity as a whole. His contribution to the formation of the nation in India was thus immense because not only did he show the world that India was awake but that it was also capable of awakening the rest of humanity by the touch of the ‘magic wand’ that remained hidden so far with the hegemonic presence of the alien power. In concrete terms, Aurobindo referred to the importance of the ancient texts, particularly the Vedas and Upanishads, which, he felt, contained conceptual designs for the uplift of humanity that appeared to have been erased from human minds in politico-ideologically adverse circumstances. With the arrival of the British, the enlightened Indians seemed to have lost their vitality, presumably because they also lost confidence in themselves. Once Vivekananda appeared on the scene, those who, so far, were uncertain about themselves rose again to re-establish that India had a rich and vibrant intellectual legacy. Since Vivekananda drew his inspiration from the ancient ‘holy’ texts like the Vedas and Upanishads, Aurobindo also acquiesced with the argument that these treatises, written by men of

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wisdom over many centuries, contained within themselves the means for the salvation of humanity against humiliation and torture. With the growing importance of these tracts as sources of inspiration during the 1905–1908 Swadeshi Movement in Bengal, Aurobindo realised that they were not just mere texts but also contained inspirational ideas to reawaken a moribund nation. It was an opportunity which the campaign provided amid inhuman torture by the British rulers when the Swadeshi activists were warmly received by the people at large since they were persuaded to believe that British rule was not invincible. Although Aurobindo did not believe that ‘anger, vindictiveness and antipathy are not in themselves laudable feeling’ [nonetheless, he felt that], ‘God uses them for His purposes and brings good out of evil’ (63). With providential intervention, Aurobindo believed that the enthusiastic participation of the people in the campaign was largely an outcome of this. The Swadeshi campaign was, at one level, a manifestation of anger against the Europeans, and at another level, the articulation of an opposition against British rule. It was well articulated by him when he elaborated his point by saying that the anger against Europeans, the vengeful turning upon their commerce and its productions, the antipathy to everything associated with them engendered a powerful stream of tendency turning away from the immediate Anglicized past, and the spirit which had already declared itself in our religious life entered in by this broad doorway into politics, substituted a positive powerful yearning towards the national past, a still more mighty and dynamic yearning towards a truly national future. (63)

Here, how Aurobindo conceptualised the nature and texture of nationalism, is evident. There are three components: first, nationalism in India was integrally linked with the exploration of areas of creative thinking that hardly drew attention to the so-called Nationalists. Being immersed in the Western discourses, the erstwhile Nationalists were not only consciously forgetful of India’s intellectual heritage but also undermined once they had an opportunity to show their unconditional loyalty to the alien rulers; second, that the masses were disillusioned with the foreign administration was manifested in their open challenge to the British rulers and their representatives at the grassroots. It was illustrated by the fact that the Swadeshi campaign spread to the remote villages in Bengal which also confirms that those at the grassroots were equally keen to participate in the campaign which was likely to give them respite; finally, the Swadeshi campaign was not just an immediate response to the brutalities of the empire, it also prepared the Indians for

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future battles if necessary since the mindset that was hardly scared of the backlash by the government seemed to have been formed on the basis of a realisation that counter-attack was the only option left. According to Aurobindo, ‘It is the free spirit of the nation beginning to emancipate itself from the foreign limitations and shackles’ (995). It was not just an articulation of opposition to the British rule, the Swadeshi campaign unleashed a collective urge to carve a narrative based on indigenous socio-cultural roots and intellectual traditions. Was this a clamour for going back to the days of the past? Being aware of the possibility of such charges, Aurobindo thus mentioned that nationalism has been hitherto largely a revolt against the tendency to shape ourselves into the mould of Europe; but it must also be on its guard against any tendency to cling to every detail that has been Indian. That has not been the spirit of Hinduism in the past, there is no reason why it should be so in future. (66)

Given the above statement, it is unfair to charge Aurobindo with being a revivalist per se. The argument is flawed for two reasons: on the one hand, he was in favour of a stern attack on colonial governance as it was contrary to human interests and betterment; on the other hand, he also clarified that the attack on European discourses did not mean an uncritical acceptance of anything Indian. By highlighting this point, he expressed his sharp critique against those who, by excessively championing the Hindu ethos, ignored the adverse impact on communal amity in view of the demographic preponderance of the Muslims in Bengal. One may easily draw a parallel between what Aurobindo felt and what Rabindranath Tagore articulated in his novel, Ghare Baire (1916) on the basis of his experience of the Swadeshi campaign, especially in East Bengal, which was highly communal and contrary to the ideas which the former always espoused. In order to further clarify his point, Aurobindo added a philosophical exposition of what he mentioned by stating that in all life, there are three elements, the fixed and permanent spirit, the developing and yet constant soul and the brittle changeable body. The spirit we cannot change, we can only obscure or lose; the soul must not be rashly meddled with, must neither be tortured into a shape alien to it, not obstructed in its free expansion; and the body must be used as a means, not over-cherished as a thing valuable for its own sake. We will sacrifice no ancient form to an unreasoning love of change, we will keep none which the national spirit desires to replace by one that is still better and truer expression of the undying soul of the nation. (66)

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Here are the foundational ideas that Aurobindo evolved while defining nationalism which were neither similar to the conceptualisation of nationalism by his fellow Revolutionary Nationalists nor an endorsement of those who insisted on an exclusive Hinduised definition of nationalism. In conformity with the ideas of Vivekananda, Rabindranath Tagore and their like-minded compatriots, Aurobindo clearly understood that an exclusive nationalism was deterred in the evolution of composite nationalism by involving disparate sociocultural communities in the struggle against the British. Aurobindo’s elaboration of his distinctive approach to nationalism was based on three arguments: first, nationalism was a device to charge the soul which was the main driving force behind manifold activities that the body undertook to translate a specific politico-ideological priority into reality. So, it was a spirit that was strong enough to inspire the soul, and then the body acquired the requisite energy to unfold in accordance with those principles and values which the soul accepted as appropriate at a particular juncture of human history. Second, he was not in favour of accepting anything ancient without examining whether it served a meaningful purpose in contemporary India. This was counter to the charge that Aurobindo was archaic in his vision. Instead, he was perhaps one of those Indian Nationalists who never endorsed derivative ideas without ascertaining their validity in the changed environment. This was the reason why he did not agree with the revival of the Shivaji and Ganapati festivals since they, by seeking to assuage the Hindu sentiments, were likely to associate the campaign with a particular religious group. He, however, agreed with Tilak when he was told that these were politico-ideological means to evolve an Indian template for all. It is also true that despite having realised the divisive impact of the Hinduised Swadeshi campaign on the Bengali Muslims, he was unable to persuade his colleagues who were prominent in guiding the campaign. Nonetheless, he, in his essays in Karmayogin, expressed his opposition to the exclusive nature of the Swadeshi Movement, which was indicative of a new wave of thinking in the Nationalist circle, highlighting the importance of communal togetherness in building a powerful Nationalist campaign. He, thus, categorically suggested that ‘we must strive to remove the causes of misunderstanding [between Hindus and Muslims] by a better mutual knowledge and sympathy; we must extend,’ he argued further, ‘the unfaltering love of the patriot to Musalman (sic) brother, remembering always that in him too Narayana [the kind-hearted Hindu God] dwells and to him too our Mother has given a permanent place in her bosom.’29 His main aim was to evolve a fraternity between Hindus and Muslims, which was possible by (a) addressing the difficulties encountered by the Muslim brethren, and

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(b) seeking to eradicate the social distance separating them from their Hindu brothers and sisters. Hence, he argued that although ‘intellectual sympathy can only draw together, the sympathy of the heart can alone unite. But the one is a good preparation for the other’ (31). So, there is hardly any substance in the claim that Aurobindo was a Hindu Nationalist since he devised a detailed scheme of Nationalist campaigns by striving to bring in the Muslims as an important constituent. Finally, it is also a little unfair to assess Aurobindo’s idea of nationalism in the conventional conceptual format in which his Revolutionary Nationalist colleagues tended to define nationalism. He did not seem to be xenophobic like many of his cohorts; and, hence, he was drawn to the libertarian ideas of the Western Enlightenment discourses. His claim that he was ready to accept the values which were useful for the soul to unfold naturally and without obstruction was a testimony of Aurobindo being receptive to discourses regardless of their intellectual roots. He can thus be claimed to have represented the Renaissance spirit in his mental make-up and articulation of views. It was a relatively less-publicised aspect of Aurobindo’s politico-ideological priorities, which were not only indicative of a new mode of thinking amid the available discourses, both Nationalist and foreign, but also ushered in a new era in India’s ideational preferences which, for instance, Rabindranath Tagore epitomised in his novels, short stories, dancedramas, plays and critical essays. Furthermore, being one who drew on the Renaissance spirit, Aurobindo raised his voice when his mentorcum-colleague, Lala Lajpat Rai, strongly argued for Hindu nationalism by entirely excluding Muslims as he believed that Hindu nationalism was greater than Indian nationality. By being scathingly critical of this claim, Aurobindo questioned him by saying that ‘we distrust this ideal … not that we do not recognise Hindu-Mohamedan rivalry as a legacy of the past enhanced and not diminished by British ascendancy’.30 While he admitted that schism between the two major communities was a reality, he also suggested means to mitigate the enmity by ‘mutual concession or by a struggle between nationalism and separatism’. In order to reinforce his point in favour of Hindu–Muslim amity as integral to India’s nationhood, he discarded the argument made by Rai by forcefully arguing that we do not understand Hindu nationalism as a possibility under modern conditions; it had a meaning in the times of Shivaji and Ramdas [medieval Hindu kings], when the object of national revival was to overthrow a Mohamedan domination, which, once tending to Indian unity and toleration, had become oppressive and disruptive. (304)

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There could not be any clearer statement than this in favour of composite nationalism that flourished under the aegis of C.R. Das (1870–1925) in Bengal. Continuing with the same zeal, Aurobindo further argued that the country, the swadesh, which must be the base and fundament of our nationality, is India, a country where Mohamedan and Hindu live intermingled and side by side. Our ideal therefore was, argued Aurobindo, an Indian nationalism … wide enough also to include the Moslem and his culture and traditions and absorb them into itself [and] … in the battle for Swaraj, the Muslims were as important as their Hindu brethren. (305)

Explicit here was his endeavour to define nationalism in its wider sense. A Nationalist to the core, Aurobindo foresaw the insurmountable political difficulties with the alienation of the Muslims, especially with the deployment of the British divide-and-rule strategy which permanently caused a fissure between these two demographically dominant communities. The nearly Hinduised Swadeshi Movement and the creation of the Muslim League in 1906, even before the 1908 government declaration of the revocation of the first partition of Bengal, were two important factors consolidating the communal chasm beyond redemption. With hindsight, it can be persuasively argued that once the Muslims had an independent voice, with their organisational strength and British support, which gradually gained momentum and acted as a deterrent, there were attempts to evolve camaraderie among them. As available evidence suggests, the Hindu–Muslim chasm at the level of institutional politics would not have become a critical factor in India’s partition in 1947 had it acted decisively at the grassroots in inculcating separatism around the axis of religion which also had a class basis; one cannot overlook the fact that the class differences between the rich Hindu zamindars, particularly in East Bengal, and the poor Muslim peasants permanently compartmentalised them as socio-culturally and economically separate entities.

Nationalism, not Extremism There is a misconception even among the analysts who depended exclusively on the official sources to write about the contribution of those opposed to Moderate nationalism in India. As the government characterised the Nationalists who did not toe the line of the Moderates as ‘Extremists’, a large number of historians tend to accept the official description since this group was described as Extremists by the

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government.31 This was the source of how the opponents to Moderates were branded as Extremists which also the contemporary newspapers uncritically accepted. Challenging the characterisation of those who effectively combatted the Moderates in the 1907 Surat Congress, Aurobindo defended that it was a ploy of the government and their minions to officially muzzle their voice by saying that the political teaching of the new school is so novel and disturbing to their settled political ideas – or rather the conventional, abstract, second-hand formulas which take the place of ideas – that they cannot even grasp its true nature and turn from it with repugnance before they have given themselves time to understand it. The most obstinate of these misapprehensions is the idea that the new politics is a counsel of despair, a mad revolutionary fury induced by Curzonian reaction.32

At the level of organisation, Aurobindo was critical of the senior members of Moderate nationalism since they failed to understand that their mode of protest was not as effective as they seemed to have conceived. At a general level, it was a battle between the younger members and their senior counterparts. With the outbreak of the Swadeshi Movement, it was realised that mere petition, prayer and peaceful protest were not adequate to revoke Partition; the Nationalists had to adopt both the policies of omission and commission: omission which was articulated in the boycott of schools, colleges and offices of the government and also the vow of not buying foreign clothes and other goods was illustrative of commission; here boycott meant a commitment to harm the British economic/commercial interests by deciding to not purchase clothes and other products produced in Britain. With the consolidation of the Revolutionary Nationalists following the 1907 Surat Congress, the Moderates were also vocal in demonstrating that they were misguided and at odds with the Nationalist goal. Aurobindo, in his regular column in Bande Mataram, referred to a speech of one of the topmost Moderate leaders, Dr Rash Behari Ghosh who condemned their opponents as ‘men embittered by oppression, exasperated by bureaucratic reaction, … [and] are advocates of an extreme attitude and extreme methods in a spirit of desperate impatience’ (354). In short, the Revolutionary Nationalists or Extremists in Dr Ghosh’s parlance epitomised a protest against misgovernment and a movement of despair driving towards revolt (354). Along with his criticism that the Moderates’ description of revolutionary nationalism was neither tenable nor admissible, Aurobindo elaborated on the nature of the movement that he, along with his like-minded colleagues, spearheaded by saying that

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the new movement is not primarily a protest against bad Government – it is a protest against the continuance of British control; whether the control is used well or ill, justly or unjustly, is a minor and unessential consideration. It is not born of a disappointed expectation of admission to British citizenship, – it is born of a conviction that the time has come when India can, should and will become [a] great, free and united nation. It is not a negative current of destruction, but a positive, constructive impulse towards the making of modern India. It is not a cry of revolt and despair, but a gospel of national faith and hope. Its true description is not Extremism, but Democratic Nationalism. (354–355)

Nothing can be more explicit than the aforementioned public statement of Aurobindo who strongly argued that not only were Moderate techniques inadequate to fulfil the Nationalist goal but they also became redundant in Nationalist politics. By responding to the accusation of the Moderate leader, Dr Rash Behari Ghosh, he further carved a new Nationalist narrative that started unfolding as a critique of Moderate nationalism. The so-called Extremism which Aurobindo defined as democratic nationalism was not a clamour for concession which the Moderates were hankering after by being mendicant; instead, it was a design for a direct attack on the British for wresting freedom by uprooting the British rule from India. It was a call for political emancipation which the Revolutionary Nationalists articulated long before the 1929 Lahore Congress when the resolution for freedom from the colonial yoke was accepted by the Gandhian Congress. Unlike the Loyalists and Moderates, who survived by being servile to the British Raj, the Democratic Nationalists held that ‘Indians are as capable of freedom as any subject nation can be and their defects are the result of servitude and can only be removed by the struggle for freedom; that they have the strength, and, if they get the will, can create the means to win independence’ (355). Their approach was starkly contrary to the Moderates who believed that the nation was ‘too weak and disunited to aim at freedom [and] … they are convinced that so long as we are not capable, it is better to remain under the British control’ (355). Unable to appreciate the Moderate claim, Aurobindo sharply attacked them by further elaborating the Democratic Nationalist position, saying instead of choosing between ‘autonomy and provincial Home Rule or between freedom and dependence’ (356), the Democratic Nationalists chose ‘freedom in contrast with national decay and death, [as they believe] that the fated hour for Indian unification and freedom has arrived [and] our effort should be inevitably driven to the attempt and the attainment of national self-realization’ (356). In so many words, Aurobindo put

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across the message that ‘the Nationalist creed is a gospel of faith and hope’ (356). Hence, Swaraj was, for the Revolutionary Nationalists, not a mere economic movement though it insisted on self-reliance, and it was not purely a political campaign though it was an endeavour for discontinuance of the British rule; it was out and out a spiritual movement directed to emancipate the colonised in every sense of the term. This was the bedrock of Aurobindo’s nationalism which he most succinctly expressed by saying that Swaraj or complete independence found its first expression ‘in an outburst of Swadeshi sentiment’ which directed itself not merely against foreign goods, but against foreign habits, foreign dress and manners, foreign education, and sought to bring the people back to their own civilization. It was the instinctive protest of Nature against the malady that is eating its way into the national system and threatening to corrupt its blood and disturb the soundness of its organs.33

On the one hand, Aurobindo felt that mere imitation of foreign values and practices was not really of assistance to build a self-confident nation. What was required was to create a milieu in which Indians were automatically drawn to their civilisational values and mores. Unless one was rooted in one’s civilisational ethos, one was unable to comprehend one’s worth in India. Interestingly, this assumption figured prominently in the writings of many of Aurobindo’s successors, including Rabindranath Tagore and Gandhi, among others. Both Tagore and Gandhi argued strongly for rootedness in one’s own cultural matrix. On the other hand, Aurobindo also raised a wider question by suggesting that once imitation was accepted by a nation, it was going to eat up its vitality which meant that the acceptance of foreign habits and practices not only made Indians rootless but also accentuated the processes of them becoming servile to the derivative discourses. In other words, they nearly failed to think independently which was shameful since it happened by being consciously submissive to the British ways of life, presumably to gain favour. Hence, Aurobindo exhorted that the return to ourselves is the cardinal feature of the national movement. It is national not only in the sense of political selfassertion against the domination of foreigners, but in the sense of a return upon our old individuality. Or, in short, the return to ‘Indianity’ … [for] if India becomes an intellectual province of Europe, she will never attain to her natural greatness or fulfil the possibilities within her. (1041)

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Unlike the Loyalists or Moderates, the Democratic Nationalists, felt Aurobindo, undertook efforts to rewrite India’s history completely differently by insisting on her rich cultural and intellectual legacies. The British hegemony was, of course, responsible for the cultural and intellectual decay which was supported by those who, by surrendering to the rulers’ dictates, expected to gain at the cost of others. This was a temporary phase of India’s history, Aurobindo confidently argued as the global history of humanity demonstrated. Basic here was the concern for building Indian nationhood by drawing on her foundational beliefs and ethos that evolved over the centuries. The campaign that Aurobindo initiated in the political domain can be said to have been heavily influenced by the initiatives taken particularly by the Brahmo Samaj under the stewardship of Debendranath Tagore since 1843. The aim was to understand India’s past intellectual resources, especially the Vedas and Upanishads, to defuse the British claim that colonial intervention was a god-sent design when she had a strikingly rich past, not only in terms of intellectual discourses, but also in governing socio-culturally disparate people. It was Aurobindo, who, by imbibing the spirit, thus articulated a new Nationalist voice that laid the foundation for many of the future anti-British campaigns for freedom in its true connotation.

Concluding Observations Aurobindo’s conceptualisation of ‘democratic nationalism’ stands out in the plethora of literature on nationalism for at least three reasons: first, contrary to the widely circulated view that Aurobindo acquiesced to the Revolutionary Nationalists’ appreciation of self-government within the British Empire which they did not say categorically, but a deep reading of their assumptions vis-à-vis nationalism reveals. Unlike many of his fellow leading ideologues, he was the first of the Nationalist thinkers who openly declared that by nationalism he meant fulfilment of Nationalist aspiration without obstruction. As elaborated earlier, he thus emphasised that unless the British control was completely withdrawn from India, it was not possible. Hence his claim that nationalism was a means to wrest political freedom from the colonisers. Second, it is noticeable that he insisted on conceptualisation also as a design for involving the demos, which means that he also counted on the role of people. There are reasons to believe that he expressed his preferences by articulating the idea of democratic nationalism as a counter to what his Moderate colleagues put forward so long as they were dominant in the Nationalist struggle. Although he was not entirely dismissive of their contribution, his criticism of their methods also suggests that

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he developed his alternative model by assessing the erstwhile mode of countering the alien rule. In other words, the Moderates built the foundation on which Aurobindo evolved his uniquely textured and ideologically innovative notion of democratic nationalism. Finally, a careful analysis of Aurobindo’s model also reveals that he came closer to Rabindranath Tagore’s idea of nationalism which was wide enough to include socio-cultural freedom as well. As is clear from Tagore’s 1904 booklet, Swadeshi Samaj, his primary concern was to liberate human minds from being vitiated by well-entrenched and perhaps happily nurtured socio-cultural prejudices. Hence, in his conceptualisation of nationalism, he took into account the importance of political freedom, which, however, remained futile unless it was accompanied by sociocultural freedom. This was the same idea that he elaborated, for instance in his political novels, Gora (1910) and Ghare Baire (1916), among others. There is no evidence, at least in Aurobindo’s own written texts, to prove that he read Tagore’s booklet, although it was likely since he was an important public intellectual when the former was editing Bande Mataram and regularly publishing his views there. What is critical to emphasise is the claim that Aurobindo too raised cudgels against socio-cultural prejudices inhibiting the rise and consolidation of bonhomie above the age-old divisive socio-cultural designs. Hence, in Bande Mataram, he forcefully argued against the Hindu–Muslim schism and also challenged the deliberate attempts by a section of the Hindus to completely ostracise a large contingent of humanity because of their specific caste identities. What is argued here is that Aurobindo was one of the chief architects of ‘inclusive’ nationalism, long before it was sharply argued by many of the Nationalists in the Gandhian era of Indian nationalism. This was remarkable, especially when the Moderates remained an important political force supported by the colonial rulers, as it was convenient for them to govern India free from political disturbances. As is well known, their politico-ideological activities were confined to the adoption of resolutions once a year, in their annual session. What was articulated in the 1907 Surat Congress had its roots in the efforts of many of Aurobindo’s Revolutionary Nationalist colleagues. For instance, Tilak’s exhortation, ‘Swaraj is my birthright’ differed radically from the Moderates’ insistence on Indian self-government within the British Empire. So, it was a period of germination of ideas which were contrarian in character. Aurobindo, being a propounder of freedom in its real sense, articulated his model of democratic nationalism in this context. A contextual analysis of his ideas shows that he was a product of a politically volatile environment when Moderate nationalism was being critiqued scathingly and the Revolutionary Nationalist priorities

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were gaining ground. Bande Mataram was illustrative of the ideological battle of the period. It was a mirror which created and also nurtured a completely differently articulated path for India’s freedom struggle. Aurobindo’s idea of nationalism was therefore not just a different articulation but ushered in a new era of Nationalist campaign in India. In many ways, Aurobindo’s democratic nationalism is a pioneering conceptual innovation. First, he was one of those Nationalist thinkers who devised a mode of mobilizing India’s socio-culturally disparate population with one politico-ideological aim, i.e., India’s liberation from the colonial shackles. Unique in formulation, this approach helps the later Nationalists build a powerful argument against the endeavour towards maintaining the existing prejudicial caste order. Second, he also raised and established the point that well-defined politico-ideological priorities were of significant importance in bringing people together. It was not, at all, easy to mobilise support for the revocation of the first partition of Bengal which was the principal aim of the 1905–1908 Swadeshi Movement. There were equally powerful forces that also worked against the Swadeshi campaign; but the fact that partition was rescinded in 1908 also shows how an ideological campaign succeeded notwithstanding adverse circumstances. Finally, Aurobindo’s approach to nationalism stands out since it was also a design to address the ageold socio-cultural prejudices deterring togetherness since there was hardly an effective campaign against them in the past. Neither the Moderates nor any of their supporters ever challenged these archaic practices, presumably because they largely belonged to upper castes which perhaps explains why they never raised their voice against them. Aurobindo’s endeavour therefore provided the Nationalists with a powerful tool to not only pursue a specific politico-ideological goal but also an empowering device to those who remained socio-politically peripheral so far given the well-entrenched prejudicial cultural practices.

3 AUROBINDO An Innovative Strategist With the foundation of the Indian National Congress in 1885, the Nationalist campaign in India was institutionalised at the behest of Moderate Nationalists, with, of course, British patronage. It was a retired British civil servant, A.O. Hume, who took the initiative which led to the formation of the Congress. Furthermore, the early Congress leadership were politically and ideologically baptised in liberal constitutionalism. Hence, they were trained to couch their voice of protest in this language. In short, following the rise of the Congress as an institutionalised platform, the Nationalist campaign was just reconciliatory in character as the Moderate leaders believed that India’s salvation was possible under British tutelage. The scene had undergone a sea change by the late 19th and early 20th century when those opposed to the Moderates raised their cudgel to chart out a new mode of conceptualising Nationalist protest. Instead of following the constitutional-liberal means, they devised designs to harm the British economic interests. Their rise and gradual consolidation ushered in a new era of nationalism in India championing means other than the constitutional-liberal mode of the Moderates. Two critical changes were noticeable in this transformation: on the one hand, this was an era which saw the gradual decline of lawyers’ hegemony in the Congress; and, on the other, the period also saw the Congress’ willingness to adopt policies for harming the British economic and political interests. No longer were the Nationalists confident of the effectiveness of liberal-constitutional means, and they conceptualised their voice completely differently. As argued above, the context was radically metamorphosed which was manifested in the articulation of a voice representing a complete break with the past. An era of action emerged; it was an era in which nationalism became an instrument to galvanise the masses into action; instead of being peripheral to the anti-British campaign, people from different walks of life joined the movement for political emancipation from foreign rule. In a context when the people became restive, the Nationalist leadership devised a boycott and passive resistance. Although the role of Lal-Bal-Pal was most critical, it was Aurobindo Ghose who, 126

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in his creative essays in Bande Mataram, provided a concrete shape to these powerful politico-ideological instruments. Boycott was an act of commission while passive resistance was one of omission: while the former resulted in the act of hitting the British interests directly, the latter was a mode of opposition by withdrawing from the government offices and which indirectly adversely affected the British interests only by withdrawing from these centres. Boycotts and passive resistance were forms of civil disobedience practised long before they were deployed in India’s Nationalist campaign. In the early part of the 19th century, in order to attain their voting rights, the women in Britain launched a movement known as the Suffragette Movement; the agitation was led by suffragettes by resorting to peaceful civil disobedience which included sit-in dharnas and peaceful marches, among others. They did not practise boycott per se, but by involving many women in the campaign, the Suffragette Movement virtually brought London to a standstill for many days. This was, perhaps, one of the most successful examples of civil disobedience in which methods of boycott and passive resistance were meaningfully tested. The New Nationalists were aware of this as Aurobindo’s essays on these experiments in Bande Mataram vindicate. The Suffragette Movement was a source of inspiration to Aurobindo because it proved how effective passive resistance was in combatting a powerful political regime.1 As one goes through Aurobindo’s writings on boycott and passive resistance, one hardly misses the imprint of the style of campaign that the Suffragettes undertook against patriarchy and also the political authority in its favour. Although he referred to the Suffragette Movement, there was no reference in his exposition to any intellectual text in which these ideas conceptually evolved. It is pertinent to mention here that Gandhi, while elaborating on his model of non-violent resistance, expressed his gratitude to Leo Tolstoy and H.D. Thoreau since he owed a great deal to them.2 Anyway, the fact remains that despite not having identified the conceptual roots of these two modes of civil disobedience, that he appears to have drawn on these known theoretical texts is too evident to dismiss. There is one striking point which deserves mention here: Aurobindo’s experiments with boycott and passive resistance marked the beginning of a new era of Indian Nationalist campaigns in contrast with the earlier Moderate nationalism which was exclusively dependent on liberal constitutionalism. Unlike his politico-ideological predecessors, Aurobindo devised a set of designs to harm British colonialism. The design was also meant to

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express that the colonised were capable of effectively challenging the colonisers by undertaking means which were unprecedented in the Indian context. Of course, there were deviations from the Moderate mode of opposing the rulers as there were stray incidents of violent attacks on them although the campaign was largely constitutionalliberal. With the appearance of the New Nationalists following the 1907 Surat session of the Congress between the Moderates and their bête noire, the New Nationalists, the Moderate methods lost their appeal. The growing importance of the new methods of the New Nationalists was thus attributed to the gradual decline of liberalconstitutional methods as effective means. So, boycotts and passive resistance were happily adopted by the leadership and its followers with the hope that they were effective enough to attain their politicoideological goals. It was the need of the hour when the Nationalists realised that the Moderate means were both ineffective and also a mechanism to appease the foreign rulers. Despite having criticised the Moderates for being ‘truly’ Loyalists, Aurobindo, however, appreciated their role in establishing that British colonialism thrived largely due to the economic exploitation of the ruled. This was a conceptual source of Aurobindo’s articulation of boycott in the sense that not only would it adversely affect the British commercial interests but it would also alert them to the indigenous politicoideological strength. It was a direct challenge to the empire for which it was adequately prepared. Once the boycott was complemented by passive resistance, the nature of the Indian National campaign underwent a sea change. By focusing on boycotts and passive resistance, this chapter focuses on their nature and texture and also provides an explanation of their changing nature as history progressed. To be precise, this chapter has specific objectives: by delving into the specific characteristics of boycotts and passive resistance, it helps us understand why and how they contributed to the expansion of the constituencies of Nationalist offence against the colonisers. It also draws our attention to the changing nature of India’s Nationalist movement with the participation of those who, so far, remained peripheral in so far as moderate nationalism was concerned. So, boycott and passive resistance were not just means of a Nationalist battle for political emancipation but they helped build a new milieu which also witnessed the unfolding of a participant-centric Nationalist campaign. In other words, Aurobindo’s design of boycott and passive resistance ushered in a new era of Indian nationalism which was novel not only in terms of texture but also politico-ideological priorities. With the articulation of a new voice, the New Nationalists carved a new narrative of Indian nationalism which was unique but also

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created a definite space for Gandhi to design the Nationalist campaign completely differently.

Boycott Aurobindo wrote extensively on boycott in his many essays in Bande Mataram. Before analysing the nature and texture of the phenomenon, Aurobindo responded to an ethical question that was raised in the public domain. According to some of his detractors, since the boycott was based on enmity and hatred against the rulers, it was ‘immoral and apolitical [and, as it] … is intended to harm the rulers, there are some men of an unctuous humanity who look [at] it with alarm and distrust’.3 The critique was drawn on the feeling that as a boycott generated hatred against other nationalities, it was condemnable. This argument was further expanded by saying that if encouragement for indigenous production was a deterrent to the producers of another country, then it was required to be eschewed as it was justified by one’s hatred towards another. What was sacrificed was love for humanity, highlighted by Aurobindo’s critics. While dismissing their viewpoints, Aurobindo, by reiterating his powerful critique against the Moderates, firmly stated that those who criticised the boycott were determined to show their loyalty to the empire since it was meant to sustain their exclusive privileges. Hence, it was obvious that they expressed their resentment when their brethren undertook activities harming the interests of the rulers. To substantiate his claim, he further argued that history was replete with examples demonstrating that rulers, especially foreign rulers, never gave up their privileges so easily. According to him, nobody seriously expects the English in India to forego any of the manifold and material advantages that are bound up with their despotic possession of the country, merely out of a philanthropic tenderness for the feelings, affections or interests of the ruled. Nobody really expects them to help the development of indigenous industry at the expense of British commerce merely because the millions of India are starving and ground down with poverty and miserable and discontented. (626)

A careful dissection of the above forceful argument reveals that Aurobindo appeared to have been persuaded by the analysis of Moderate thinkers, Dadabhai Naoroji and R.C. Dutt who, in their Poverty and Un-British Rule in India and The Economic History of India respectively, made the point that without India being a British colony,

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industrialisation in Britain would not have been possible. So, they also highlighted the role of the alien rulers as exploiters of India. It was impossible for them to part with their long-drawn benefits by exercising arbitrary and absolute power. This was a triggering factor since the ruthless governance directed to mercilessly exploit Indians justified the claim of the New Nationalists that unless the former raised their voice their plight continued to remain the same. Aurobindo was confident that ‘the down-trodden and suffering people of India will soon realize that British rule was exploitative… [and, hence,] under no circumstances, it can be an instrument [for] … protecting national interests and welfare of all’ (627). Here, too, while referring to the vicious role of the empire, he criticised his erstwhile Nationalist colleagues at one level; at another, he emphatically declared that the brutal English governance led to mass consternation in India. In other words, while condemning the Loyalists, Aurobindo also provided an explanatory framework to comprehend the rise of a new stream of Nationalist thinking appreciating a direct battle with the rulers. What is striking here is also the fact that Aurobindo exposed the hollowness of the Moderate argument which helped the participants in the Nationalist campaign understand that they were befooled by their brethren exclusively for their selfish gain at their expense. Despite having created a base for their colleagues who later became prominent in the campaign against British rule, the Moderates lost their claim as they hardly acted as ‘true nationalists’ and thus completely failed to earn respect from most of their New Nationalist colleagues and people at large. After having exposed the partisan motives of those opposed to the boycott, Aurobindo dealt with the etymological meaning of the phenomenon to show how it was an effective instrument to combat the colonisers who appeared to have taken the Indians for a ride. Being aware that Moderate nationalism was responsible for this to a significant extent, he also understood the importance of organising the masses for the Nationalist cause. Questioning the conceptualisation of boycott as a gospel of hatred, [he thus argued that] … it is simply an assertion of our independence, our national separateness. … [It] has come among us not to bring peace, but a sword. And, this was inevitable [because] … until now the discontent, the ill-will, the suffering was all on one side. [In consequence] when one side is depressed, miserable, suffering, while the other thrives and prospers by means of that misery and suffering; when one side is denied the use of its capacities and satisfaction of its aspirations, … the other grows great and glorious and robust by the exercise of the usurped opportunities it has taken from its neighbours, there must be

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resentment, there must be antagonism and therefore strife, ill-will and anger. (627)

Most revealing is the above text written by Aurobindo to grasp his unique conceptualisation of the boycott. An analysis of the above also underlines the distinctive features of his politico-ideological preferences. A boycott was the outcome of circumstances when the ruled asserted their rights by deploying means directed to ruin the ruler economically. It was not based on hatred, but an offshoot of situations of denial to the Indians of their legitimate rights and benefits even as citizens of the empire. A boycott was also an inevitable response since it helped articulate a voice of the oppressed against oppression. In so many words, Aurobindo defended the contention: first, so far, the rulers never bothered to take care of the legitimate demands nor did the Moderates ever raise the genuine socio-economic issues to avoid being identified as anti-British. For the rulers, as Aurobindo believed, it was a natural reaction; what intrigued him was the role of the Moderates who were always restrained from raising those uncomfortable questions, apprehending that it was likely to harm them. So, there was none to dwell on the issues of deprivation of the people at large; second, a boycott was also an articulation of a language couched in the discourses of rights. During the initial stages of the Raj, the discourses were tilted in favour of the rulers, and the ruled were mute observers of what ensured the rights of the former. As history progressed, the scene underwent a noticeable change accompanied by a significant transformation of the nature of the Nationalist campaign. With the decline of Moderate nationalism, the New Nationalists rose to prominence which also led to a significant metamorphosis of the Nationalist vocabularies. The battle was for equal treatment of the subjects which prepared the rulers and the ruled for a head-on collision. Finally, the rise and consolidation of the New Nationalists established that the rulers and ruled were always antagonistic in response to one another. This was an antagonistic contradiction that could never be resolved amicably since the former was accustomed to those benefits and privileges which they accrued at the cost of the latter. So, the only option was to snatch them by deploying means upsetting the system which allowed the rulers to retain their privileges. A boycott was thus an effective politico-ideological device to pursue the interests of those millions of hapless Indians who, so far, were taught that their salvation from perennial poverty was possible with the continuity of British colonialism. Apart from Aurobindo’s own explanation, a contextual reading of the prevalent socio-economic and politico-cultural processes also confirms that boycott was a culmination of long debates within the close circles

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of the Congress. Being undaunted Loyalists, the Moderates never espoused such a cause for obvious reasons. Their primary concern was to remain where they were in the social hierarchy, and hence, they were not expected to disturb the applicant. In spite of the fact that Dadabhai Naoroji and R.C. Dutt offered a powerful critique of British economic policy, none of their colleagues came forward to join hands with them. The New Nationalists with whom Aurobindo was associated since its formation during the 1907 Surat Congress charted a new course which adopted boycott happily and readily. Boycott was thus just a legitimate expression of hatred and anger against the ruler who denied ‘equality to the ruled [and] thus the possibility of equal opportunities and equal accomplishment is rigidly excluded for them’ (627). By identifying the denial of equality as one of the triggering factors for the governed to accept a boycott, Aurobindo laid out a conceptual template for defending his critique of Moderate nationalism. In simple terms, a boycott was a natural response of the oppressed since it provided them with an effective tool for ventilating their grievances. It was not morally wrong for ‘those who deny liberty have no right to appeal to the higher feelings or morality at all, for they are trying to perpetuate for their own selfish ends an essentially immoral conditions of things. So long as liberty is denied,’ argued Aurobindo, ‘there must be the hatred which the slave always cherishes for his master, and when the attempt to throw off the yokes comes, there must be the yet bitterer hatred which the master feels for his revolted slave’ (627). Two factors are thus critical: (a) the denial of equality to a specific segment of people, and (b) the articulation of a response in a language which was effective enough to harm the British. Boycott was that response couched in a meaningful language, felt Aurobindo. It was he who evolved a tool with a purpose and appeal to the people at large. Boycott gained easy acceptance since it was a protest against ‘the denial of liberty by the alien rulers [and their indulgence in] doubly and terribly immoral deeds’ (627). A detailed discussion of the justification of the boycott of British goods sets out the core Nationalist argument that Aurobindo offered to meaningfully challenge the Moderate counter-arguments of those of the Loyalists. As a perceptive thinker, Aurobindo also held that the boycott owed its growing importance as an effective mode of political mobilisation in view of the Swadeshi Movement (1905–1908). A new Bengali race was born with an exalted and self-sacrificing spirit in their conduct. With the rise of many successful Swadeshi companies, their European counterparts faced, for the first time, stiff competition. He also felt that although the quality of Swadeshi goods was not always satisfactory, ‘people have happily accepted them in total disregard of the quality

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and the price … because of the awakening of national life everywhere in the shape of the Swadeshi and boycott movements’.4 So, Swadeshi and boycott were dialectically intertwined. This also confirms that at least for the majority of Bengalis, boycott was a perfect mechanism to champion the Swadeshi goals. There is a question here which Aurobindo himself hinted at. His point was that the quality of Swadeshi goods did not deter the nationally minded Bengalis from buying them. However, contemporary media reports showed that it gradually became a matter of concern to the Swadeshi leadership since taking full advantage of people’s genuine Nationalist concerns, the dishonest businessmen focused primarily on augmenting their profit rather than endeavouring to improve the quality of goods they produced. This was perhaps one of the significant reasons why the English products regained their marketability as in the past. It was therefore not a strategic mistake but was based on the fulfilment of narrow partisan interests of indigenous businessmen and traders. What it confirmed was an axiomatic assumption that businessmen were governed primarily by their narrow commercial interests. Besides this politico-ideological motive, it was also true that local businessmen lacked the technological know-how that their British counterparts had because of the Industrial Revolution back in Britain. The failure of indigenous businessmen to compete with foreign companies was an outcome of a combination of factors which were (a) instinctive of those who were governed by the profit motive, and (b) an outcome of the failure to keep pace with the ability of foreign businessmen to improve the quality of goods. Rabindranath Tagore referred to another factor in his novel, Ghare Baire (2016), which also explains why boycott lost its momentum in most of Muslimpreponderant East Bengal. The forcible application of the boycott of foreign clothes for homespun khadi not only deterred poor Muslims but also helped create a space for communal forces during the Swadeshi campaign. Illustrative here is the debate between two protagonists in the novel, Sandip and Nikhilesh: while the former, a firebrand Swadeshi activist, was in favour of imposing a boycott even by applying force if needed, the latter did not seem persuaded.

Swadeshi and Boycott The counter-arguments did not appear to have convinced Aurobindo who discarded them as mere ‘teething problems’. Ideationally, as he felt, nationalism was an articulation of Swadeshi, boycott, Swaraj and national education. According to him, Swadeshi was ‘the method, the way, the road by which the nation advances’ (837). As an integral

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part of Swadeshi, boycott complemented the Nationalist campaign; national education was the means of training the ‘mind and heart of the younger generation’. In an unequivocal fashion, he further stated that ‘Swaraj is the goal of our national life [and] our political efforts are directed to Swadeshi, Boycott, Swaraj and national education’ (837). The Nationalists’ ultimate aim was therefore to wrest Swaraj. In order to accomplish the goal, Swadeshi and boycott were required to be practised. His description thus upheld the view that Swadeshi and boycott were the interconnected means for fulfilling the final Nationalist goal, viz., Swaraj. Here Aurobindo reiterated the views of his colleague, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, who always insisted that Swaraj was his birthright, and for its attainment, the Nationalists were ready to undertake steps to effectively deploy boycott as a means. Persuaded by Tilak, Aurobindo also conceived Swadeshi and boycott as Siamese twins: one was inconceivable without the other. In conceptual terms, they denoted different senses, but, in practice, they were connected dialectically. While explaining the analytical distinction between the two, Aurobindo, thus, argued that when we speak of Swadeshi, we ought clearly to understand the meaning of the words: Swadeshi is the preference for articles produced by Indian labour in India itself; … Boycott is generally understood [as a determination] to exclude foreign products, the determination not to use articles of foreign manufacture. (837)

To further elaborate on the ideas, he also claimed that in India’s specific commercial and industrial circumstances, Swadeshi and boycott had wider meanings. They were not economic or commercial designs; they also represented concerted efforts at building a mindset drawing inspiration from the espoused Nationalist goal. One may make a comparison between how Rabindranath Tagore conceptualised Swaraj with that of the New Nationalists, which broadly corresponded with Gandhi’s approach to national freedom. Unlike the poet, they believed that political emancipation was a panacea; perhaps, they were partly correct since only with the removal of the foreign yoke, was it possible for the Indians to chart an independent path suitable for their progress. Rabindranath, however, held completely different views, for he felt that political emancipation was certainly a significant step, but not adequate to achieve human salvation. To be precise, according to him, so long as human beings were divided according to caste, class, religion and ethnicity, freedom in its real connotation remained elusive. Illustrative here were firm critiques of division around the axes of caste and religion. And, also in his novels, especially Gora (1910), he attributed the prevalence of caste and religious schism as

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detrimental to the rise of humanity as a well-knit collectivity. What he referred to in the novel Ghare Baire was expanded most clearly in Gora which addressed the question of religious and caste chasm from the perspective of Bengal villages. The moot point was that just political liberation from British rule was not enough to purge Indians of caste and religious prejudices. Long before he narrativised the harmful effect of caste and religious division on endeavours towards unifying people with different sociological identities, he, in his Swadeshi Samaj (1904), conceptualised the limitations of Swaraj as propounded by many Nationalists who later appeared on India’s Nationalist scene as New Nationalists. He questioned the widely held contention that with the attainment of Swaraj, the myriad socio-cultural and politico-economic problems confronted by the Indians would soon disappear. Tagore and Gandhi held similar views though a little differently. Equally disturbed by the fact that socio-cultural division among the Hindus and the differences were causes of a permanent communal fissure, the Mahatma also felt that it was easier for them to meaningfully address them with the capture of political power. While differing radically, Tagore was never persuaded since he believed that since schism was deep-rooted, the adoption of mere policy designs was futile to scuttle the well-entrenched socio-cultural prejudices. Hence, he was in favour of pursuing a struggle against foreign rule and also against these age-old archaic practices inhibiting human unity in a sustained way. A perusal of the trajectory of Indian nationalism demonstrates that boycott was one of the significant modes of opposition to British rule although it was institutionalised in the early part of the 20th century at the behest of the New Nationalists who became prominent in the Nationalist campaign following the decline of the Moderates. The battle line between the Moderates and their opponents was drawn earlier; it was formalised in the 1907 Surat Congress. For Gandhi, boycott was also accepted as an effective means to champion the Nationalist cause. The only exception was Rabindranath Tagore who was neither persuaded by his contemporaries nor ever admitted that boycott was tuned to the Nationalist goal; instead, it was likely to be a source of consternation primarily between the rich and poor which, in Bengal, corresponded with the Hindu–Muslim divide since Hindus were generally well off compared to their Muslim counterparts. In fact, in many of his creative writings, not only did he condemn the forcible application of boycott to the poor Muslims but he also castigated the Congress leadership for having underplayed, if not ignored, the peculiar ecosystem particularly of East Bengal.

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Swaraj and Boycott These two ideas were put to the test in the context of the Swadeshi Movement; they also heralded a new era of Indian nationalism which also established a new set of Nationalists who rearticulated nationalism completely differently in contrast with the erstwhile Moderate Nationalists. Conceptually, Swaraj was, according to this group of young Congress activists, ‘the alchemical stone, the parash pathar [which] will turn to gold everything we touch’.5 In simple terms, Swaraj was the final goal towards which the Nationalists aspired. As Aurobindo reinforced, boycott was complementary to Swaraj since it generated a mass zeal ‘to be economically independent of the British’; Swaraj was also a touchstone to create an independent sense of identity among the Indians. By referring to the role of village samitis, for instance, Aurobindo underlined how one, by being part of a collectivity, learnt to respect diverse views to arrive at decisions which were useful for all. It was possible, he argued further, because the villagers also realised that ‘being united we win and divided we fall’. In a clear language, he, while highlighting how integrally it was connected with freedom from colonialism, thus mentioned that ‘if we forget Swaraj and win anything else we shall be [a] seeker whose belt was turned indeed to gold but the stone of alchemy was lost to him forever’ (874). What is significant to remember here is the claim that Swaraj was identified as the primary goal of the battle against the British. Hence, it is understandable why Aurobindo and his colleagues were wholeheartedly devoted to mobilising supporters for Swaraj. While explaining the nature of Swaraj, Aurobindo, in one of his essays in Bande Mataram, forcefully argued that Swaraj was ‘the direct revelation of God to those chained by the British [which meant that it was] not mere political freedom but … freedom of the individual, freedom of the community, freedom of the nation; spiritual freedom, social freedom, political freedom’ (874–875). Indians had experienced spiritual freedom as many of the Indian saints carved many paths for spiritual salvation which one was allowed to choose in accordance with one’s preferences. What was missing were social freedom and political freedom. He, however, added a caveat here by saying that in the past, this was not the case; once India became a vanquished nation, Indians were deprived of social and political freedom. As regards the loss of social freedom, he held the foreign rulers responsible since social division among the Indians was utilised by the rulers to politically divide them in terms of their religious and caste identity. In other words, Aurobindo referred to the divide-and-rule strategy which the colonial power resorted to while governing India. Despite having mentioned

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that intrinsic to social division was a well-entrenched mindset, he also said that social freedom was not ‘the result of specific processes of social churning but an outcome of lack of concern of the advantageous sections of society for the less-advantaged’. Mere surmounting was not of help since a man who followed, he argued further, petty ends cannot feel his brotherhood with his fellows, for he is always striving to raise himself above them and assert petty superiorities [for] … if caste makes superior or money makes him superior, he will hug to his bosom the distinctions of caste or the distinctions of wealth. (875)

So long as political freedom was absent, these divisive aspects of humanity continued to remain critical in interpersonal relationships. Aurobindo’s explanation was straightforward. According to him, ‘if political freedom is absent, the community has no great ends to follow and the individual is confined within a narrow circuit in which superiority of caste, wealth or class is the only ambition which he can cherish’ (875). These were novel ideas on which Rabindranath Tagore and Gandhi developed their critique against class and caste divisions as detrimental to the consolidation of a sense of belonging irrespective of hierarchy justified in terms of birth and the capability of amassing disproportionate wealth by being selfish. They spearheaded a relentless campaign against socio-cultural prejudices as perhaps one of the first things to be accomplished to strengthen the movement for freedom. Keeping Aurobindo’s explanation in view, the argument that there was an imprint of his ideas in the arguments of Tagore and Gandhi gains credibility. As he emphasised, political freedom remained a utopia till these distinctions were eradicated. While extending his point, he thus suggested that since artificial superiority led one to internalise the feeling of being superior, it is difficult to uproot these divisive instruments so easily. In order to firmly make his argument, he referred to the behaviour of a slave who ‘cannot forget himself in the service of slave owners for he is already a slave and is taught to survive by doing what he is told to do’ (875). Over time, a slave developed a mindset of being inferior to the owner since he knew that without being conscientious of his role, he had nothing but to face torture. Hence, his sustained service to his master helped build in him ‘a sense of degradation, not a willing self-devotion’ (875). This was disastrous, warned Aurobindo, for a nation because ‘when a man is thus degraded, it is idle to think that society can be free’ (875). This is one of the perceptive comments which is based on his understanding of human nature. He was persuaded to believe that spiritual freedom was futile unless it was accompanied by social and political freedom.

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At one level, his argument is a scathing critique of those who always self-eulogised themselves by insisting that India’s strength lay in her spiritual strength which Aurobindo characterised as nothing but ‘an escape route from facing the hard reality of political subjugation and ingrained socio-cultural segmentation among human beings’ (875). This was an attempt to establish that ‘the path of salvation lies in selfishness’ (875), which Aurobindo strongly opposed by stating that if the mass of men around us is miserable, fallen, degraded, how can the seeker after God be indifferent to the condition of his brothers? Compassion to all creatures is the condition of sainthood, and the perfect Yogin (ascetic) is always protective of those who are left behind. (875–876)

Three critical points deserve attention here. First, Aurobindo was perhaps one of those vocal Nationalists who questioned the endeavours of some of his contemporary leading thinkers who highlighted India’s spiritual might as a source of strength. Despite being an agnostic, Aurobindo agreed that it could have been a source of inspiration, but could never be adequate to completely weed out servile mindsets and age-old socio-cultural prejudices. A careful reading of his argument may suggest that his opposition was directed against Vivekananda and also the Brahmo Samaj for their insistence on spiritual emancipation as prior to social and political freedom. His viewpoint was not, however, free from criticism since the contributions of both Vivekananda and the leading exponents of Brahmo Samaj cannot be belittled given their role in inculcating pride as Indians who also had rich intellectual and cultural legacies. This was not a mean achievement as contemporary scholars have shown, especially when with the hegemony of Western discourses, that indigenous sources of wisdom lost their viability.6 It was Vivekananda, and later Debendranath Tagore, a committed disciple of Rammohun Roy, who played a critical role in establishing the importance of the Vedas and Vedantic texts (Upanishads) in the development of a solid intellectual tradition which was no less insignificant in conceptualising the unfolding of humanity. Second, Aurobindo’s strong criticism of spiritual leaders also substantiates the claim that his approach was secular since he paid scant attention to either Vedas or Upanishads while articulating his politico-ideological priorities. Being critical of class, caste and religious division as deterrents towards cementing a bond among the Indians, he can be said to have hit the bullseye long before Tagore and Gandhi dealt with them. This was a new conceptual format of Swaraj which was possible, Aurobindo enforced, if the battle against colonialism was

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complemented by the war for purging society of well-nurtured sociocultural prejudices. So, there are two levels at which he pitched his argument: at the politico-ideological level, his point carved a creatively conceptualised narrative of nationalism which accorded primacy to social and political freedom; at the level of conceptualisation, he devised a model which took into account the importance of the eradication of artificially constructed division among human beings around the axes of caste, class and religion as complementary to political freedom. Finally, there is therefore no denying that Aurobindo was a pioneer in evolving a new set of ideas which were inconceivable so long as Moderates reigned supreme in India’s Nationalist campaign. By arguing strongly in favour of Swaraj, Aurobindo changed the Nationalist vocabulary which gained momentum as history progressed. His emphasis on Swaraj in the sense of complete freedom in his myriad writings in Bande Mataram also questioned the assumption that the idea of complete freedom was espoused in the 1929 Lahore Congress. By taking a lead from his co-workers among the New Nationalists, especially Tilak and Pal, Aurobindo articulated their ideas in the form of a politico-ideological model for an enslaved nation. In other words, Aurobindo can thus be said to have pioneered the idea of complete freedom which fully blossomed in the Lahore resolution. It is also true that notwithstanding having devised an inspirational model for Nationalist mobilisation, neither Aurobindo nor his New Nationalist colleagues succeeded in pursuing the battle for Swaraj to its fruition; nonetheless, by designing a model and complementary vocabularies, they helped their successors in the Nationalist campaign, to a significant extent, to consolidate a path for freedom and a mode for an effective ant-British counter-offensive at the behest of Gandhi and those with similar ideological predilections.

Meaning of Swaraj Etymologically, Swaraj is a blending of two terms: Swa (self) and Raj (guidance), which means rule of the self. Epistemologically, it is an expression which also involves responsibility. For instance, as soon as one takes upon oneself a task, one automatically is bound to devise means to accomplish the task as efficiently as possible. So, one is emotionally attached to the task since one immediately remains connected with the task and also a specific design that one deems appropriate for its accomplishment. While explaining the concept, Aurobindo drew on the ideas of one of the most perceptive thinkers of Moderate nationalism, Dadabhai

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Naoroji, who, in his Poverty and Un-British Rule (1901), offered, perhaps, one of the most persuasive critiques of British economic policy towards India as a colony. He was the one who formulated the ‘drain theory’ which Gandhi also accepted while assessing Western civilisation in his Hind Swaraj (1909). According to Aurobindo, Naoroji, in his presidential address in the 1908 annual session of the Congress in Calcutta, mentioned that ‘we must have Swaraj on the lines granted to Canada and Australia, which is our sole aim’. What he demanded was the right of self-determination by the subjects which the Moderates always insisted upon. Being unhappy with this obvious definition of Swaraj, Aurobindo referred to an informal discussion that he had with Naoroji after the session. On the basis of the discussion, he, while reinterpreting his own definition, seemed to have come closer to what Aurobindo had in mind. As Aurobindo explained unequivocally on the basis of inputs received from Naoroji, ‘Swaraj means administration of affairs in a country by her own people on their own strength [for] … welfare of the people without even nominal suzerainty, which is the object which we wish to attain’.7 The definition is radically different from that of Naoroji in two fundamental ways: first, Aurobindo insisted on self-rule on the basis of what was considered to be useful to bring about the welfare of the people irrespective of socio-cultural division; second, he also forcefully argued for avoiding ‘suzerainty’ of outsiders which meant that he was contemplating a society free from being controlled by anybody except the countrymen. This was the fundamental assumption which ran through the elaboration of the concept. According to him, the idea was not novel; in fact, it was ingrained in the evolution of India as a polity. But he lamented that ‘we had forgotten it for a long time and feared to speak about it. We were far away from the truth and we had forgotten it, and on that count, we have been reduced to a bad condition. If we do not acquaint ourselves with the object in view, viz., Swaraj, I am afraid we, thirty crores of people, will be extinct’ (833). In order to persuade people to support the battle for Swaraj, he further exhorted that participation did not mean involvement in ‘a mere political uprising or mere political change, but in a task that you have been called upon to do God’s work’ (832). Linking one’s participation in the struggle for Swaraj with one’s service to God was deliberate since it was likely to resonate with people instantaneously because of their instinctive inclinations to serve the providential authority. What is fascinating in Aurobindo’s mode of thinking was his emphasis on boycott which was dialectically connected with Swaraj: they acted in tandem in Aurobindo’s ideational universe. By drawing attention to the indigenous roots of boycott which was articulated as a

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design to harm the British economic interests, Aurobindo also brought out a new dimension of Indian nationalism; it was clearly an effort which was rooted in the prevalent socio-economic and politico-cultural milieu of Bengal. The belief that human beings worked in accordance with the direction of an authority higher than intellect was defined by Aurobindo as ‘a more unfailing oracle’ (892). Hence, he argued that being guided by one’s heart is ‘where God resides; He works through the brain, but the brain is only one of His instruments. Whatever the brain may plan, the heart knows first and whoever can go beyond the brain to the heart will hear the voice of the Eternal’ (892). There are two levels at which the argument is made: at the spiritual level, the argument was a reiteration of an Upanishadic belief that the Almighty was instrumental in guiding the human heart, which meant that whatever human beings did in real life was a response to the providential directions. At the political level, it was a stern critique of Lord Curzon’s decision to bifurcate Bengal, seemingly for administrative convenience. Aurobindo strongly believed that the design was bound to fail since it was a decision that flowed from Curzon’s intellect. Given the discontent of those who were adversely affected following the declaration, Aurobindo also believed that the feat did not come from his heart. At the same time, he also confirmed that the Swadeshi Movement, being a heart-driven campaign, was certain to succeed in revoking the partition of Bengal. As history shows, with the withdrawal of the decision, that Aurobindo was correct was proved beyond doubt. It was also an exemplary manifestation of how Aurobindo resorted to the spiritual conviction of those who fought for the annulment of partition. And, once it was accomplished, the participants were also persuaded to believe in the dialectical interconnectedness between worldly human existence and the role of an invisible but effective providential force. Similarly, when he talked about boycott, he always referred to its indigenous roots. The reason is not difficult to find. This is psychologically satisfying if the participants had no doubt that the battle was being fought for their well-being at the expense of the colonisers who thrived by exploiting the colonised. In fact, this was also a factor that accounted for Gandhi’s success when he linked the Indian masses with his conceptually indigenous Satyagraha campaign. Boycott was one of those means which, Aurobindo claimed, was practised first in ‘Kishoreganj, Magura, the obscure villages and towns of East Bengal’ (892). How it happened and what form it took remain hazy, explained Aurobindo. Its success in these remote areas of Bengal was largely due to providential intervention. Further to the argument, he also emphasised that despite strong criticism against boycotts by many important Congress leaders that it was finally accepted was testimony of how heart

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prevailed over intellect. This also confirmed Aurobindo’s firm belief that ‘God manifests himself in Boycott and [since it was providentially guided] He does not need anyone to tell Him how to bring it to success. He will see to that Himself ’ (893). So emphatic was his belief in this regard that he went to the extent of saying that ‘whoever thinks he can play chess with a revolution … which is always full of surprises … will soon find how terrible is the grasp of God and insignificant the human reason before the whirlwind of His breath’ (893). An explanation is required here: one must not misconstrue that Aurobindo was religious in his approach to nationalism. Instead, his purpose was to inculcate ‘morality’ because without being moral, no ideal objective was possible to achieve. It was evident when he stated that ‘if falsehood is at the root of a movement, that movement is doomed to failure. Diplomacy can only help a movement if the movement proceeds upon truth. To make diplomacy the root-principle is to contravene the laws of existence’ (882). Reiterating the claim, Aurobindo redrew a conceptual foundation in which spiritualism was upheld as integral to his politico-ideological priorities. By spiritualism, he did not mean unconditional surrender to the providential authority, but re-inculcating morality, concern, compassion and care for human beings in general.

Morality of a Boycott The point made above is dealt with thoroughly in this subsection. As mentioned above, many of Aurobindo’s colleagues were not inclined to adopt the boycott as it was too harsh a weapon for fulfilling the Nationalist objective. Those who were tilted in favour of Moderate nationalism were vociferous in their opposition to the proposal. By drawing attention to an allegory, Aurobindo justified that for destroying the evil forces, God approved of the application of force to completely weed them out. In contrast, some of his colleagues exhorted the dictum that ‘heal hate by love, drive out injustice by justice, slay sin by righteousness’.8 On the basis of such a belief, they ‘shrink from aggressiveness as if it were a sin; their temperament forbids them to feel the delight of battle and they look on what they cannot understand as something monstrous and sinful’ (1117). As a pragmatist, he questioned the idea which was more idealistic and less realistic for it was easier to speak of love than to love; the love which drives out hate, is a divine quality of which only one man in a thousand is capable; … a Saint full of love for all mankind possesses it, … but the mass of mankind cannot rise to that height. (1117)

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It was therefore highly unrealistic to expect human beings to abdicate the instinctive sense of hatred to those who subjected them to inhuman torture. Love hardly worked in relation to the oppressors since they thrived by being so. In order to persuasively argue his point, Aurobindo referred to the Bhagavad Gita which was ‘the best answer to those who shrink from battle as a sin and aggression as a lowering of morality’ (1117). Here, his main purpose was to develop a mindset justifying a direct attack on colonial rule. His arguments were thus directed against those who continued to be conciliatory in their assessment of British rule. The other aspect relates to the importance of the indigenous texts like the Bhagavad Gita which immediately built an emotional chord with the victims of alien governance. As persuasively argued above, the core aim of Aurobindo and his New Nationalist compatriots was to win Swaraj, which was possible if the British interests were in jeopardy. Hence, boycott was preferred. For him, with Swaraj, a new nation blossomed which was not possible unless colonialism was completely uprooted. Here, Aurobindo’s idea of nation is critical to comprehending his distinctive politico-ideological preferences. As he elaborated, when … we speak of a nation, we mean the separate life of the millions who people the country, but we mean also a separate culture and civilization, a peculiar national temperament which has become too deeply rooted to be altered and in all these we discover a manifestation of God in national life which is living, sacred and adorable. It is this which we speak of as the Mother. The millions are born and die; we who are here today will not be here tomorrow, but the Mother has been living for thousands of years and will live for yet more thousands when we have passed away. (1116)

A careful reading helps us understand Aurobindo’s notion of nation which was different from his erstwhile Moderate colleagues’ conceptualisation. Critical of the Western design of essentialising diverse human identities, Aurobindo paid equal importance to India’s disparate socio-cultural fabric which was a reiteration of the argument that the derivative criteria of nation, nationalism and national identity remained inapplicable to India. Conceptually innovative and politically meaningful, the conceptualisation was of assistance to grasp the point that despite being socio-culturally diverse, human beings could still come together to form a nation. On the one hand, by arguing that India was a nation, he meaningfully challenged the British claim that before the colonisation of India, she was not a nation which meant that the British rule wove together

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different parts to create India in the wake of alien governance. On the other, by characterising the battle for Swaraj as a means to remove foreign rule, he also created a mindset helping to build an emotional bridge cutting across geographical, social and cultural boundaries. Second, the arguments for the nation also highlighted the importance of a civilisational bond among the Indians despite not being similar otherwise. India is a civilisational nation which evolved out of respect for one another, notwithstanding being located in completely different socio-economic and politico-cultural zones. This was a unique design of human existence which was not constrained by the conventional criteria of nation or nationhood. Finally, the aforementioned also highlights the transcendental character of Indian civilisation. His explanation was Indianised in the sense that he attributed the continuity of India as a civilisation to the omnipresent Mother. Here, the expression ‘Mother’ represented a repository of values which were distinctively indigenous. The analogy of Mother also had strategic importance in India, given the fact that it was Mother who always cemented a bond among her children. Here, by christening the country as a mother, Aurobindo evolved a conceptual model for generating bonhomie and togetherness among the Indians despite being disparate in social, economic and cultural terms. The above points have tremendous conceptual significance in two complementary ways: on the one hand, it is now evident that Aurobindo was ahead of many of his colleagues who remained trapped in the existent theoretical priorities regarding the idea of the nation. Swaraj was an innovative design to develop a new mode of conceptualising the nation, not by emulating the Western version but by creating a completely new conceptual parameter. On the other hand, what Aurobindo evolved in the context of the Swadeshi Movement continued to be pertinent later, especially during the Gandhian phase of the Nationalist campaign which was also directed to wrest Swaraj by forcing the British to leave India. So, Swaraj, despite being rooted in the Swadeshi campaign, remained an effective instrument to galvanise the masses against the oppressive rulers in adverse circumstances.

Articulation of Swaraj Swaraj became part of India’s Nationalist lexicon once Dadabhai Naoroji introduced the idea in the 1908 annual session of the Congress although it gained momentum in the context of the Swadeshi Movement. It was most eloquently stated by Aurobindo when he said that

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Swaraj found its first expression in an outburst of Swadeshi sentiment which directed itself not merely against foreign goods (Boycott), but against foreign habits, foreign dress and manners, foreign education, and sought to bring people back to their own civilization. It was the instinctive protest of Nature against the malady that was eating its way into the national system and threatening to corrupt its blood and disturb the soundness of its organs.9

In order to illustrate his point, he referred to the radical transformation of Brahmabandhav Upadhyay, one of the firebrand leaders of revolutionary nationalism, who, after having been disillusioned with the European discourses, found the path for human salvation in the indigenous sources of wisdom. It was the spirit of Bengal which, according to Aurobindo, ‘incarnated itself in him, with the strength, courage, passionate adherence to conviction which was the temperament of old Bengal and which modern Bengal had for a period lost’ (1040). As a hardcore Nationalist, Aurobindo drew our attention to a process of transformation leading to the displacement of the Western mode of life and knowledge by the indigenous counterparts. The example of Brahmabandhav Upadhyay is perhaps the most apt as he represented the two extremes: at one point in his life, he was a hardcore Christian, and in his later life, he became a devout Hindu and supporter of ‘Extremism’ as was evident in the weeklies, Sandhya (in Bengali) and Blade (English) that he edited. In fact, Rabindranath Tagore claimed to have constructed the character, Indranath, in the novel, Chaturanga, after Upadhyay. There was a similarity between him and the leader of the Extremist outfit, Indranath. Like Upadhyay, Indranath was a hardcore Hindu who was also ready to sacrifice his personal interests for the nation although at the end of the novel, he, similar to Upadhyay, also realised that Extremism was not the right path of human salvation. Nonetheless, what Aurobindo underlined here was a radical change in the texture of nationalism in the wake of the campaign for Swaraj which was simultaneously a political movement and a serious endeavour towards returning to one’s socio-cultural roots. In his perception, ‘the return to ourselves is the cardinal feature of the national movement; it is national not only in the sense of political self-assertion against domination of foreigners, but in the sense of a return upon our old national individuality’ (1040). The Swadeshi campaign was thus a phase of revivalism because it witnessed a visible concern of many to get back to their socio-cultural roots. According to Aurobindo, imitation by the Indians of European culture was neither good for India nor for world civilisation as it led to the destruction of India’s distinctive sociocultural profile. As he explained,

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if India becomes an intellectual province of Europe, she will never attain to her natural greatness or fulfil the possibilities within her … [because] to accept the dharma of another is perilous; it deprives the man or nation of its secret of life and vitality and substitutes an unnatural and stunted growth for the free, large and organic development of Nature. (1041)

By clinically examining the deficiencies of emulation, Aurobindo thus forcefully defended the common urge for exploring one’s distinctive socio-cultural roots. For him, it was hardly an attempt to go backwards but to move forward for one’s rootedness was one’s strength. History shows that whenever a nation allowed itself to be swallowed by others, it disappeared from civilisation. So, the Nationalists and those supporting the Swadeshi Movement needed to be alert to this possibility. India was required to maintain its distinctive socio-cultural existence just like Europe which also should take care of its own civilisational distinctiveness. Otherwise, both civilisations had no future. Intrinsic here was also Aurobindo’s warning that in the interest of humanity as a collectivity, civilisational peculiarities were important features showing its organic growth. So, England should not graft its civilisational ethos into India, and Indians should never give up their unique socio-cultural texture by being unconditionally loyal to the British rulers. The Swadeshi Movement was thus inspirational not only because it was a direct threat to the British political and economic hegemony but it was also spiritually empowering since it created an impulse among the Indians to respect their intellectual and cultural heritage. Hence, Aurobindo exhorted that ‘the success of [the Swadeshi Movement], both as a political and as a spiritual movement is necessary for India’ (1041). Aurobindo shared a with the readers of Bande Mataram a common concern for India's political salvation, which was one of the most serious endeavours by the Nationalists to build a constituency. One of the reasons was the failure of the Moderates to gauge the temperament of the youth who appeared to have been completely disenchanted with their conciliatory Nationalist mode. In contrast, New Nationalism ushered in a new era with the articulation of a set of activities directed to hit the colonial power directly. Under no circumstances, was it an outcome of Lord Curzon’s administrative decision to dismember Bengal as many of the Moderate Nationalists alleged. Aurobindo’s response was curt and unambiguous. Hence, he argued that instead of being a product of bureaucratic wrath, New Nationalism evolved as a reaction to Moderate nationalism which, by pursuing a policy of appeasement of the Raj, was an attempt to muzzle the contrarian voices; it was, therefore, a voice which was naturally

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formed in view of the obvious limitations of Moderate nationalism. While challenging the Moderate characterisation of New Nationalism as a ripple since ‘the renewal of the British smile will take away the steam’, Aurobindo argued that New Nationalism was not born of persecutions and cannot be killed by the cessation of persecution [for] … long before the [execution of the 1905 Bengal partition by the British], while the Congress was beslavering the present absolutist bureaucracy with fulsome praise as a good and beneficent government marred by a few serious defects, while it was singing hymns of loyalty and descanting on the blessings of British rule, Nationalism was already born and a slowly-growing force … it was not born and did not grow in the Congress Pandal, nor in the Bombay Presidency Association, nor in the councils of the wise economists and learned reformers … but in the hearts of men to whom India under the good and beneficent government of absolutism seemed an intolerable dungeon, to whom the blessings of an alien despotic rule were hardly more acceptable than the plagues of Egypt, who regarded the comfort, safety and ease of Pax Britannica - an ease and safety not earned by our own efforts and vigilance but purchased by the slow loss of every element of manhood and every field of independent activity among us in circumstances … when few of us enjoy being clerks and successful professional men [ignoring that the continuity of British rule meant] … lasting pauperism and degradation of a great and ancient people.10

An analytical dissection of the detailed exposition of how New Nationalism emerged in the wake of the movement for Swaraj which succeeded, to a significant extent, with the deployment of boycott and other means reveals that Aurobindo was aghast at the Moderate Nationalists because they surrendered to the British for certain exclusive benefits at the cost of the majority. As they were governed by their self-interest, it was not expected of them to adopt means to harm the British; their servility represented their so-called espousal of national interests as a means to deceive the nation. Hence, Aurobindo summarised by saying that ‘the very basis of constitutional agitation is a reliance on the foreigner and a habit of appealing to him, which is the reverse side of a distrust and certain contempt for their own people’.11 In its place emerged New Nationalism which was neither an outcome of deliberations in the annual sessions of the Congress nor in any Moderate conciliatory measures, but in the endeavours of those who not only realised that Moderate nationalism was vacuous in nature but also a design to permanently keep India under British suzerainty.

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With the above clarification based on his scathing critique of Moderate nationalism, Aurobindo was now in a position to explain the rise and consolidation of New Nationalism by drawing attention to an urge for Swaraj that gradually engulfed the nation. The battle for Swaraj, like all other movements in history, argued Aurobindo, has life and vitality in it and its root deep in the very nature of things and events. It is not artificially raised; no movement of the kind can be; it has not been engineered by a Lajpat Rai [or any one individual]: it does not proceed from mere discontent or ‘disloyalty’: it is no aberration or monstrosity. It has the uniformity, the identity of manifestations in widely-separated regions, the similarity of thought, motive and expression which belong to great, sudden, spontaneous movements to divine events.12

Here, Aurobindo focused on the inner dynamics of the campaign for Swaraj to explain its origin. As one of the pioneers of New Nationalism, he explained the gradual popularity of New Nationalism as Moderate nationalism was extremely limited in its appeal due to its servility to the British. This was one aspect of his explanation; the other part of the explanation was linked with his analysis of how New Nationalism flourished because it succeeded in spreading the message of India’s political salvation by drawing the selfless contribution of those inspired by its politico-ideological preferences. It was realised cutting across caste, class and religion that Moderate nationalism was an endeavour towards deceiving the Indian masses for their narrow gains. Contrarily, those who were involved in the struggle for Swaraj were steadfastly committed to the cause of the nation regardless of distinctions around the axes of caste, class and religion. Swaraj was meant to wrest emancipation while the Moderate Nationalist voice was mere ventilation of those grievances which were unlikely to embarrass the rulers. For the Moderates, the option was chosen deliberately to protect their socioeconomic interests and politico-cultural image to the government; it was thus obvious why their voice of protest was considerably muted. In contrast, with the consolidation of Revolutionary Nationalists, the nature of the struggle against the British hegemony had undergone a sea change in comparison with the past due to the reconceptualisation of the nationalism agenda in a completely different way. Instead of being mendicants as Moderates were, the New Nationalists did not seem to be restrained in so far as the application of any methods provided; they were tuned to the goal they aspired to attain. What was intriguing to Aurobindo was the change of attitude of many of his Moderate Nationalist colleagues and also the so-called British liberals once Swaraj was accepted as the Nationalist goal. This

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change in attitude did not appear to have shocked the New Nationalists since Swaraj was contrary to their conciliatory mode of opposition to the alien hegemony. Aurobindo also realised that as soon as the empire felt threatened, the British liberals also changed their stance from being appreciative of the Nationalist cause to staunch opponents. It did not seem odd to him because once your existence was at stake, you were likely to react violently because ‘a mind clouded by national self-interest and perverted by European prejudices and contempt for Asiatics forbids [them] to use [their] reasoning power on India as [they] would have used them in the case of [a] European country similarly circumscribed’ (559). While challenging the hypocritic British liberals, on the one hand, he, thus, established how racism acted as a determinant of their attitude vis-à-vis Indians. Swaraj was a litmus test for all, in the sense that it allowed the New Nationalists to understand who were the foes and who were friends in the final battle against colonialism. In pursuing their goal of Swaraj despite severe opposition by the rulers for obvious reasons, Aurobindo also admired the role of the Revolutionary Nationalists’ mouthpiece Bande Mataram in spreading the Nationalist message to a cross-section of Indians. It was, as Aurobindo characterised, ‘a gospel of undiluted Nationalism without any mitigating admixture of prudent concealment or diplomatic reservation was poured daily into the ears of the educated class in India’.13 At one level, the publication of a regular weekly was a continuity of the past—there are many illustrations to defend the claim that earlier critics of British rule and prevalent sociocultural prejudices resorted to weeklies to transmit messages. The tradition that began with Rammohun Roy, thus, continued. Gandhi too published Young India and Indian Opinion during his South African sojourn to challenge the racist regime there. At another level, Bande Mataram was a break from the past because it propagated that for India to become free, Swaraj was the only option, in contrast with any other effort undertaken in the past. By articulating the message of Swaraj, the weekly carved a new narrative in India’s Nationalist discourses which gained momentum in the post-1929 Lahore Congress when the Nationalists adopted the resolution for complete independence. Bande Mataram thus stands out in the plethora of Nationalist literature not only for having introduced Swaraj as the only mode of wresting freedom from the British but also for having created a powerful constituency of supporters for the Nationalist cause. It served twin purposes: Bande Mataram created a definite space for New Nationalism which was opposed to the Moderate Nationalists by exposing the inherent limitations of their mode of challenging the British; on the other hand, the New Nationalists’ mouthpiece heralded a new phase in nationalism which drew its nourishment by seeking to trouble the ruling authority.

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Summarising the Argument This subsection is, at one level, an elaboration of an argument in conformity with what Aurobindo offered; at another level, its purpose is also to show that even in adverse circumstances, the Nationalists carved a completely different path for salvation which neither corresponded with that of the past nor had ever been tuned to the prevalent Nationalist voice. It was a uniquely textured voice championing Swaraj or complete freedom from colonial hegemony. Aurobindo’s effort led to the articulation of a language of protest amid repression by foreign rulers as it threatened their existence meaningfully for the first time since the outbreak of the so-called mutiny or the first war of independence organised in 1857. Swaraj and boycott were inseparable in the discourses of New Nationalists who also identified themselves as Democratic Nationalists because of their endeavour to link people from various walks of life with the campaign for freedom. It will historically be improper to completely dismiss the contribution of the Moderates. In two ways, they can be said to have prepared a template for the battle ahead: with the foundation of the Indian National Congress in 1885, the Moderates with, of course, assistance from the retired British civil servant, A.O. Hume, put in place a politico-ideological platform to ventilate Nationalist grievances. At the outset, it was criticised as ‘a talking shop’ although the resolutions and the discussions that took place in the Congress annual sessions are very useful in comprehending the contemporary Nationalist mindset. Second, it would not be an exaggeration to suggest that the New Nationalists created their own politico-ideological priorities by being sternly critical of the Moderate policy of appeasement—by articulating a powerful critique of Moderate nationalism, New Nationalists justified their own politico-ideological priorities that created a path for the Nationalist struggle. Differently textured and with a different politicoideological aim, New Nationalism ushered in a new era in India’s Nationalist history in more than one way. Prominent among them were (a) the articulation of a new language with unique vocabularies also borrowed from historical experience from other countries, especially from Italy, and (b) the shifting of leadership which was largely lawyerdominated to people with other professions. Although there was a change in leadership and supporters, the battle for Swaraj was still confined primarily to the educated classes. Despite being identified as Democratic Nationalists, the characterisation did not seem appropriate since the New Nationalists did not succeed much in drawing people from various walks of life.

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Nonetheless, New Nationalism was the beginning of a journey that can be said to have culminated in the attainment of political freedom. Swaraj and the boycott remained critical to the non-cooperation campaign that Gandhi spearheaded along with his compatriots in the early 1920s. Aurobindo and his New Nationalist colleagues were harbingers of a new era of Indian nationalism. It can now be fairly argued that Aurobindo, through his regular contributions in Bande Mataram, provided useful inputs to identify and understand how contrarian ideas gained credibility despite being opposed vehemently by his detractors. It was not just his Moderate colleagues but also the rulers who, in complicity with them, devised many torturous methods to nip the movement for Swaraj in the bud. Many of his co-workers withdrew, but the campaign went on unabated. This shows that Moderate nationalism was hardly an effective campaign as it evaporated with the increased importance of New Nationalists in the anti-British counter-offensive that underwent a sea change following the adoption of Swaraj as the Nationalist aim and boycott as a means. It is also established that Swaraj and boycott which the New Nationalists evolved became integral parts of the Nationalist vocabularies. Although Aurobindo did not undertake an extensive study for locating their roots in India’s indigenous discourses, by referring to the function, especially of the Buddha Sangha in the ancient past, Aurobindo indicated that what he did was to carry forward a tradition that evolved in India. The ideas of Swaraj and boycott were not thus novel as they evolved long before they became integral to the New Nationalists’ politico-ideological predilections. This was a smart move on their part in two ways: not only did this endeavour prove that India had rich intellectual legacies but it also challenged the Moderate effort of articulating the voice of Nationalist protest in the borrowed language of Western discourses. Here, we must add a caveat. Before Aurobindo referred to India’s rich history of intellectual growth, the Brahmo Samaj firmly established in the public domain that indigenous discourses were as powerful as their Western counterparts in comprehending complex socio-economic and political-cultural realities. There are reasons to believe that Aurobindo owed a great deal in linking Swaraj and boycott with the past indigenous intellectual discourses since, in many of his essays in Bande Mataram, he referred to the contribution of the Brahmo Samaj in initiating concerted efforts at eradicating wellentrenched socio-cultural prejudices. As shown above, like his Brahmo Samaj colleagues, Aurobindo also felt that so long as human minds were vitiated by these deliberately constructed prejudices, Swaraj in its real connotation remained elusive.

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Finally, Swaraj and boycott weren’t mere means—they were conceptual innovations as well. In fact, Gandhi, while adopting Swaraj and boycott as integral to his Satyagraha, referred to the seminal contribution of the New Nationalists who, by evolving the most effective means for political mobilisation, helped build a new mode of conceptualising the Nationalist discourses. Fundamental here is the claim that not only did Aurobindo play a historical role by persuasively arguing in favour of Swaraj and boycott as being integral to the Nationalist discourses but he thus continued to remain critical to the campaign for Swaraj that the future Nationalists organised long after he left India’s political scene.

Passive Resistance Aurobindo stands out as a politico-ideological thinker for his wellargued conceptualisation of passive resistance which he developed in a series of essays in Bande Mataram between 11 and 23 April 1907. Published with the title, ‘The New Thought: the Doctrine of Passive Resistance’, the document contains his ideas on the theme in detail. Integrally linked with his notions of Swaraj and boycott, passive resistance was an articulation of a method which was neither exactly non-violent in the Gandhian sense nor violent in any criterion but was a creative blending of both. While drawing on the endeavour of the struggle of the vine growers of the south of France who deployed the method of passive resistance, Aurobindo evolved the mode which, he thought, was of great use for attaining the Nationalist goal in India. Emphasising that the campaign was an example of passive resistance, he focused on the character of the movement, the vine growers launched there. One of the main objectives of the movement was to paralyse the government, which the campaigners accomplished by resigning en masse from the municipalities. With the coercive attack by the military, the peaceful character of the movement disappeared, and it adopted violent means to sustain the campaign, which was a blunder since that allowed the state to become ruthless in containing the rebels. In the face of this, most of the leaders surrendered and disappeared from the scene as they considered it to be the only option left for them. While explaining the root causes of the failure of the vine growers to fulfil their demands, Aurobindo attributed the decline of the campaign to ‘the instinctive nature of the people of being impatient, and incapable of endurance’.14 Two reasons were therefore identified: on the one hand, the lack of endurance accounted for the gradual weakening of the campaign; on the other, it was also

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highlighted that state repression created an atmosphere when the rebels hardly remained non-violent. The French example is illustrative of how Aurobindo justified violence in case it was opted for by those battling against oppression as perhaps one of the effective means under the circumstances. This is a conceptually valid point since he paid adequate attention to the contextual peculiarity as a determinant of human behaviour. There could hardly be a generalisation since Indians radically differed from the French; furthermore, the vine growers were struggling against their own government while, in India, the campaign was directed to destabilise foreign hegemony. Without an effective campaign, it was impossible to remove the foreign shackles which is also a conceptually significant contention if it is judged in light of his sharp critique of Moderate nationalism. Notwithstanding his appreciation for the Moderates, he also identified the obvious limitations of their methods in wresting freedom from colonialism. So, the French experiment was very useful to him in elaborating his distinctive politico-ideological priorities in two interrelated ways: (a) not only was it an example but the French example helped build confidence in the method of passive resistance which was potentially strong enough in mobilising support for a cause; and (b) by drawing on this specific illustration, he also perceptively commented on human nature in general which he articulated by saying that repression created panic and also strong will. As argued above, many of the participants deserted their colleagues when the French government deployed the military which also acted positively in generating a nerve of steel among many of the rebels who were hardly deterred from pursuing their mission.

Laying out the Contours of Passive Resistance At the outset, Aurobindo insisted that self-development was impossible so long as India remained colonised. So, the first task was to develop a mindset to spread the claim that without liquidating foreign rule, there was no future for the Indians to be politico-ideologically free. Hence, he justified that the enslaved people of India needed to be organised to first effectively combat the British and then remove the foreign rulers from India. Unless India was free from foreign hegemony, self-development was an expression with no substance as he argued that ‘self development of an independent nation is one thing; self-development from of state of servitude under an alien and despotic rule without the forcible or peaceful removal of that rule as an indispensable preliminary, is quite another’.15 Critical for self-development was (a) the overthrow of

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a rule which was both despotic and insensitive to the ruled, and (b) emancipation was thus possible only through ‘forcible or peaceful’ means. While elaborating his argument further, he, thus, emphasised that no national self-development is possible without the support of … organized political strength, commanding and whenever necessary compelling general allegiance and obedience. … Industrially, socially, educationally there can be no genuine progress carrying the whole nation forward, unless there is a central force representing either the best thought and energy of the country or else the majority of its citizens are unable to enforce the views and decisions of the nation on all its constituent members. (265)

On the one hand, Aurobindo was aware that the progress of a nation was contingent on the willingness of the people to pursue the cause which was supportive of national well-being; on the other, the collectivity, defined as a nation, remained a haphazard pool of people unless they were guided and also inspired by higher ideals of life. Being colonised, Indians appeared to have lost the capacity for independent thinking; their vision was clouded by their uncritical appreciation of the principles of Enlightenment, undermining the brutal character of British administration in India. According to Aurobindo, ‘by clinging to the step-motherly apron strings of a foreign Government, … we have fumbled through the nineteenth century, prattling of enlightenment and national regeneration; and the result has been not national progress, but national confusion and weakness’ (266). What was thus required to be done was to organise people for a final battle against British rule for political freedom which was the life-breath of a nation; to attempt social reform[,] educational reform, industrial expansion, the moral improvement of the race without aiming first and foremost at political freedom, is the very height of ignorance and futility.… [Furthermore,] the primary requisite for national progress, national reform, is the habit of free and healthy national thought and action which is impossible in a state of servitude. (266)

Along with the building of a unified national will, Aurobindo also felt the need for a well-meaning leadership that took on the responsibility of leading the people from the front; besides this, it was organisationally helpful since the control was unified. By referring to the failure of boycott, which was, otherwise, an effective mechanism in inspiring the Nationalists, it never became so attractive to the people as was

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expected—presumably, it was not channelled properly through a unified leadership. By attributing the meteoric rise of Japan to a strong, unified leadership, Aurobindo also insisted that India’s salvation lay in the same. What he had in mind was the importance of an organisation that functioned under able leadership, a claim which was illustrative of his concern to address the vertical and horizontal schism in the prevalent Congress leadership. He was, perhaps, disturbed by the failure of the Moderate leadership in uniting many splinter groups with an identical politico-ideological perception vis-à-vis Indian nationalism. Behind this explicit desire to have an acceptable leadership, Aurobindo drew our attention to (a) the importance of effective leadership and (b) a warning that split leadership was at the root of organisational weaknesses which should be avoided for establishing a strong platform for the struggle for emancipation. The other important concomitant aspect was also the importance of self-denial, which was, according to Aurobindo, ‘part of the national character or for centuries has taken a prominent place in the national discipline’ (267). There was no dearth of those who happily practised self-denial for a cause which he strongly believed. While explaining why it failed to become an integral character of India as a nation, he referred to the lack of ‘iron endurance, tenacity, doggedness far above anything is needed for the more usual military revolt or sanguinary revolution’ (267). He lamented that these qualities were wanting in Bengal, presumably because Bengal hardly witnessed ‘suffering and torture … [that are] … associated with a prolonged struggle with superior power’ (267). His belief was based on the assumption that ‘there is nothing like a strong pressure from above to harden and concentrate what lies below – always provided that the superior pressure is not such as to crush the substance on which it is acting’ (267–268). There was a second condition which also merits attention. Here, Aurobindo drew on the practice that prevailed particularly in Indian villages against those who defied the rules, values and norms which needed to be respected by all. In sociological parlance, it is known as social excommunication and the general censure of those who tended to violate the established modes of behaviour. Implicit here is the argument that those who stayed away from the Nationalist campaign were to be socially boycotted since they were deviants in terms of the established notions on which human beings were assessed. As it was a powerful tool, Aurobindo insisted that the Nationalists needed to deploy the means to expand their support base and also to weed out those who remained loyal to the foreign rulers. On the surface, the strategy appeared to be less humanistic and more brutal which did not fit well with the overall politico-ideological priorities of Aurobindo. In his favour, one may, however, offer the

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point that given his objective of bringing about national emancipation, this was just a strategy which, he thought, was likely to give political dividends to the campaign. The last requisite of self-development, in Aurobindo’s conceptualisation, was to mount pressure on foreign bureaucracy which was unlikely to succeed at the outset because of the well-entrenched mindset of the bureaucrats who thrived otherwise by being Loyalists to the government in power. It was a difficult task which was, of course, not insurmountable. He did not outright reject the strategy since he was of the view that over a period of time, Indians who were part of the bureaucracy realised their fault and slackened their commitment to British rule. Fundamental here was Aurobindo’s steadfast commitment to create conditions for self-development which was, he conceived, one of the core pillars of his conceptualisation of passive resistance, being aware that the path was not rosy as the British administration was not only well entrenched but also drew on a mindset in its favour. In other words, he identified two enemies in the fight for emancipation: on the one hand, the strong British state which had evolved over decades and was supported by the most developed set of coercive instruments; on the other hand, he was also aware that the situation became a little difficult since many Loyalist Indians also felt that the British rule was desirable which meant that the Nationalists had to fight against their own brethren. An optimist to the core, he also acknowledged the contribution of the erstwhile Moderates who, by slowly appreciating the pernicious impact of British rule in India, à la Dadabhai Naoroji and R.C. Dutt’s painstaking research on India’s economic decline, created an ambience for nationalism to evolve differently. Illustrative here was their acceptance of Swadeshi as an attempt to become economically independent of the British and also the acknowledgement of the importance of national education as a tool for unearthing India’s intellectual heritage. Their nearly indifferent responses when the boycott was accepted by the New Nationalists were a source of disappointment to Aurobindo. Nonetheless, being a pragmatic politician, he did not find anything seriously wrong in such behaviour. According to him, that the Moderates were likely to be satisfied with the status quo was easy to grasp given their visible commitment to liberal constitutionalism which hardly had room for modes for harming the British government. While laying out the conditions for passive resistance, Aurobindo charted a new course of Nationalist campaign which was meant to win political emancipation. His method, passive resistance, which also gained massive popularity once Gandhi accepted it as a tool to spearhead the Nationalist campaign, registered a new mode of thinking

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as well. For the New Nationalists, of which Aurobindo was one of the leading exponents, passive resistance represented a form of ‘an organized resistance’. A Nationalist who also believed that Nationalist strategists were largely context-driven, Aurobindo categorically stated that ‘organized resistance … has many forms: passive or active, defensive or aggressive’ (269). In the end, he, however, preferred to characterise passive resistance as defensive resistance [which necessitated] not only the organization of a central authority, but also to take up all branches of our national life into our hands, … in order to meet bureaucratic opposition and compel the alien control to remove its hold on us, if not at once, then tentacle by tentacle we must organized defensive resistance. (269)

Gandhian resistance was different from that of Aurobindo for he did not exclude the use of any means; or, in other words, while Gandhi privileged means over ends, he did not appear to have appreciated the Gandhian preference to be strictly non-violent, even if that was detrimental to the attainment of ends. The second aspect is also illustrative of Aurobindo being an astute strategist—he believed that India’s emancipation was not an easy task for a variety of complex reasons. Hence, his suggestion was to move forward step by step. The reason was not difficult to locate: the English rule was strongly grounded not only on lethal coercive instruments but also on the spontaneous support of the colonised for reasons which were linked with a particular mindset that evolved over many decades. One of the factors was definitely the consolidation of a strong bureaucracy manned by Indians who were taught to be Loyalists by the well-rooted English education, introduced by T.B. Macaulay in his famous 1835 Minutes. These English schools were ‘mechanisms for producing Indians who are Indians by birth, but English in their commitment to the royalty’ (269). Highlighted here is the argument that for India to be politically free, what was required was to combat the mindset that uncritically justified the British hegemony in India. So, in the struggle for political salvation, the replacement of the British by the Indians was not the only objective; the aim was also to effectively combat the mindset by creating a milieu in which an alternative had to be conceptualised to enable it to strike roots in India.

Passive Resistance: Its Object According to Aurobindo, unlike his predecessors, the Moderates, the New Nationalists devised a new tool in the form of passive resistance

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which was also defined as organised resistance to attain their goal of complete freedom from British rule. This was the core objective of the resistance that they contemplated which he categorically mentioned when he uttered that organized resistance to an existing form of government may be undertaken either for the vindication of national liberty, or in order to substitute one form of government for another, or to remove particular objectionable features in the existing system without any entire or radical alternation of the whole or for the redress of particular grievances. (270)

A multifaceted strategy, Aurobindo’s passive resistance was a tool to address many deficiencies of public governance along with a mechanism to achieve ‘national liberty’. By drawing a comparison with the Moderates who always awaited favour from the rulers, the New Nationalists were in favour of forcing the government to effectively take care of public grievances; otherwise, the ruled had every legitimate right to defy the government. At one level, Aurobindo reiterated one of the core principles of liberal constitutionalism entailing that in case the political authority failed to act in accordance with the expectations of the ruled, it would face public wrath was too obvious to deserve an elaboration; at another level, by insisting that the governed were authorised to resort to means which were not exactly constitutionalliberal, he introduced a new dimension to Indian nationalism. Here, he was a democrat in its undiluted form, which he articulated in clear terms while justifying his contention by saying that the only effective way of putting an end to executive tyranny is to make the people and not an irresponsible Government the controller and paymaster of both executive and judiciary. The only possible method of stopping the drain is to establish a popular government which may be relied on to foster and protect Indian commerce and Indian industry conducted by Indian capital and employing Indian labour. [By placing people of India] … at the centre of governance, the new system [is] … not just tinkering and palliatives but the substitution for autocratic bureaucracy which at present misgoverns us of a free constitutional and democratic system of government and the entire removal of foreign control in order to make way for perfect national liberty. (271–272)

What is evident here is Aurobindo’s concern for protecting India’s economic future which was already discussed at length by the Moderates, Dadabhai Naoroji and R.C. Dutt. By arguing strongly for a popular

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government, Aurobindo actually brought out his deep appreciation for democracy as a mode of governance. He was sure that only with the establishment of a popular government in which people remained at the centre, much of India’s socio-economic ills could easily be addressed. Being aware that it was easier said than done given the well-entrenched roots of alien government, he thus came out with his unambiguous suggestion by highlighting that he was not in favour of ‘tinkering’ with the prevalent government, but was for its complete removal as it had lost its legitimacy by being despotic. With this comment, he completely dissociated from his former Moderate colleagues in politico-ideological terms: contrary to them, Aurobindo always favoured political emancipation from British rule as the only option left with the ruled. For him, it was a battle for establishing popular sovereignty in place of the rule by a few; a novel idea, which, however, did not gain an easy acceptance by those who dominated the National Congress before the rise and consolidation of the New Nationalists following the 1907 split in the Surat Congress with the Moderates. Differences between them were unbridgeable since the New Nationalists articulated a voice which differed radically from that of the latter which was put in black and white when Aurobindo stated that the subject nation does not desire … maimed development but the full, vigorous and noble realization of its national existence, even a change in the system of government will not be enough; it must aim not only at a national Government responsible to the people, but a free national Government unhampered even in the least degree by foreign control. (272)

Why did the Moderates fail to conceptualise India’s salvation in these terms? Here, Aurobindo, by drawing on the history of the development of India as a nation under British tutelage, explained why it became so during colonial rule. It was not surprising, argued Aurobindo, that the politicians of the 19th century did not understand the changing politicoideological character of Indian nationalism since ‘they had no national experience behind them of politics under modern conditions; they had no teachers except English books and English liberal sympathizers and friends of India’ (272). The argument is based on his realisation that it was inevitable since their only sources of learning were Western discourses which never allowed the indigenous wisdom to flourish for obvious reasons; one of the reasons for the failure of the Moderates to conceive of India’s distinctive national characteristics was their willing surrender to the British system of governance as it was beneficial to them. His explanation was rooted in the system that the colonised evolved in India to sustain colonial rule. One of the pillars of such a

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system was English education which perpetuated the servitude in India, of course, with the support of those wielding political–administrative authority. In a very eloquent manner, he, thus, explained that schooled by British patrons, trained to the fixed idea of English superiority and Indian inferiority their imaginations could not embrace the idea of national liberty and perhaps they did not even desire it at heart preferring the comfortable ease which at that time still seemed possible in a servitude under British protection to the struggles and sacrifices of a hard and difficult independence. (273)

Explaining why the ideas did not ever dawn on the Moderates, Aurobindo also referred to the intellectual servility of his erstwhile Nationalist colleagues who had blind faith in the English system since, as he underlined, they were products of the system, introduced by the colonial power for its selfish interests. The ideas supportive of colonialism helped build a set of comprador politicians who, by being loyal to the government, enjoyed the benefit which was not possible, for obvious reasons, had they been in the opposition. So, their ideas were historically governed. The Moderates’ blind support of the government was also obvious given their uncritical acceptance of the lessons of British political history which showed that there are two options if governance was degenerated: the slow method of constitutional agitation and the swift decisive method of open struggle and revolt. As per Aurobindo, neither of them was relevant in India because (a) the history of India was heavily tilted in favour of intellectual traditions supporting non-violence, and (b) those who played critical roles in bringing about decisive changes in the British government in Britain had already gained a powerful voice in society which was possible due largely to the sustained struggle of the masses against the wielders of power and authority. By contrasting the functioning of the Moderates with that of the New Nationalists, Aurobindo established that the methods of the latter were far more effective in pursuing their goal of India’s political emancipation. The old school was dead, yielding place to the new since the latter provided new mechanisms for awakening the moribund nation. Hence, their mode of struggle was superior, argued Aurobindo because they have an indomitable courage and faith in the nation and the people. By the strength of that courage and faith they have not been able to enforce on the mind of the country a higher ideal but perceive an effective means to the realization of that ideal. (274)

Conceptually innovative and also powerful, the set of ideas that Aurobindo articulated were harbingers of a new era in India’s Nationalist struggle—

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he was confident that the New Nationalists set in motion newer modes of thinking which were linked to the desire for national rejuvenation. It was completely missing presumably because of the obvious limitations of Moderate nationalism. Nonetheless, Aurobindo never underplayed the role of his former colleagues since they also raised cudgels against colonial rule in their preferred mode of articulating opposition. What the New Nationalists conceptualised was uniquely textured and was based on different parameters of the Nationalist struggle. According to Aurobindo, it was a contextual response in the sense that the politicoideological priorities that the New Nationalists represented were also context-driven which was evident in the growing restiveness of the masses for participation in the struggle for political salvation. It is thus fair to argue that the New Nationalism that Aurobindo most persuasively presented to justify his mode of opposition to British rule brought about a radical metamorphosis in what was, so far, appreciated as an anti-British campaign at the behest of the Moderates. It was a manifestation of a ‘new political thinking which modern India has not before seen [and] … with the rising tide of popular opinion at their back, passive or active, aggressive or defensive resistance will surely lead … to the creation of a free popular Government and the vindication of Indian liberty’. (274) Explicit here are two important claims: on the one hand, while defending his conceptual point that New Nationalism was an inevitable outcome of the prevalent socio-economic and politico-cultural circumstances, he also noticed the rising tide of mass awakening which his erstwhile compatriots in the Nationalist struggle failed to comprehend. On the other hand, he left no ambiguity that the New Nationalists were in favour of a free popular government in which the voice of the people was respected. Only with the formation of such a government, the claim that India was politico-ideologically free could be made. Apart from deviating from the established mode of Nationalist thinking that thrived at the behest of Moderates, these two points are of tremendous significance since they not only indicated the beginning of a new era in India’s Nationalist struggle but also signified that mendicant nationalism became vacuous with the unfolding of ideas supportive of different idioms of nationalism.

Passive Resistance: Its Necessity Opposition to the brutal British rule was morally justified since it was not only contrary to the core Enlightenment principles but also behaved in a most uncivilised fashion while dealing with the ruled. Unlike his Moderate compatriots, Aurobindo and his colleagues who spearheaded

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the New Nationalist campaign endorsed organised resistance as well. Not only was organised resistance appropriate, it was necessary for human emancipation which was one of the fundamental ideas on which the Enlightenment philosophy rested. As an astute strategist, Aurobindo devised a design which he also defended as ‘appropriate’ under the prevalent circumstances. According to him, ‘organized national resistance to existing conditions, whether directed against the system of government or such or against some particular features of it, has three courses open to it’ (276–277). Of these, the first was to ‘make administration under existing conditions impossible by an organized passive resistance’ (277)— this was drawn on the strategy of Parnell of Ireland, who organised a powerful campaign when the state enhanced rent exorbitantly at a time when agricultural production suffered due to natural calamities. The second course was already practised in Czarist Russia when the workers organised a series of strikes which led to the decline of production in factories. By referring to this instance, Aurobindo also realised that it was an effective mechanism to force the rulers to bow down before the rebels who did not accept the rulers as they were not attentive to the genuine difficulties of the ruled. There was also a difficulty, warned Aurobindo. In the case of Russia, it was the Bolshevik Party which was instrumental in mobilising the workers; this was not possible in India as the National Congress was not as effective as the Bolshevik Party in the country as a whole. Nonetheless, by drawing on this example, Aurobindo acquainted the protesters with a specific mode of protest which was potentially strong enough to help them attain their goal as the Russian workers did despite the torturous governance of the Czar. The course open to a nation was ‘armed revolt, which’ argued Aurobindo, instead of bringing existing conditions to an end by making continuance impossible sweeps them bodily out of existence; this is an old time-honoured method which the oppressed or enslaved always adopted … in the past and will always adopt in the future if they see any chance of success. (277)

Although this means was swiftest and demanded the least powers of endurance and suffering, Aurobindo did not seem to support it, presumably because of the price in terms of loss of life. His caution against the application of violent revolt underlines two critical points: on the one hand, it questions the assumption that Aurobindo belonged to the so-called Extremist section of Indian Nationalists, which he avoided, by highlighting the human cost that it involved; on the other, it also helps us proceed with the argument that he, like Gandhi, was always keen to develop a campaign by involving the masses which was impossible in case of armed revolt because it required long-drawn

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preparation of human minds willing to make the supreme sacrifice for a cause. Hence, he suggested that ‘the choice by a subject nation of the means it will use for vindicating its liberty is best determined by the circumstances of its servitude [and] … the present circumstances in India seem to point to passive resistance as our most natural and suitable weapon’ (277–278). By insisting that the prevalent politicocultural milieu was not ready for any other method of struggle than passive resistance, Aurobindo pursued the same logic that Gandhi would do once he reigned supreme in the Nationalist struggle. While defending that this was the right choice under the prevailing conditions, he further argued that in Russia, the situation was unbearable for the people at large, and hence, they resorted to armed revolt as a last resort. It was like a person who deployed all his forces to get rid of the rope when he was sought to be killed by strangulation. In other words, if the governing authority was completely non-sensitive to the governed and was deploying any means indiscriminately to muzzle the voice of protest, the protesters had every right to respond in the same language. Hence, in Aurobindo’s perception, the denial of liberty in Russia and Ireland by brutal coercion by resorting to unlawful violence by the rulers justified violence by the rebels since ‘the answer of violence to violence is justified and inevitable’ (278). What is critical here was Aurobindo’s astute political sense which guided him to choose perhaps the most effective mode of mobilising the masses for India’s salvation from colonialism. This discussion of means also defuses the claim that he was an ‘Extremist’ in terms of his preference for means of political action; instead, it is vividly clear that being aware that violence was not going to yield results in India, he chose passive resistance which Gandhi practised on a gigantic scale in the 1920s and 1930s. Aurobindo was opposed to British rule since it was immoral. Hence, it was natural that he was likely to support the claim that the Nationalist campaign needed to uphold modes which were moral as well. The same was true in his demand for the abolition of the British-initiated selfgovernment which ceased to be moral. In its place, what was required was to build a mindset opposing the degraded form of self-government in India. Only then, self-government in its real form was certain to emerge. How was it possible? As per Aurobindo, it was possible once the nation upheld morality as an intimate component of government. The idea needed to be inculcated ‘by the healthy air of a free national life in which it can permanently thrive’ (279). Only by passive resistance did the environment for nationalism prosper naturally because it ‘provides the best training of qualities which lay the foundation of concerns for the nation’ (279). Here, Aurobindo did not appear to be illogical because he was also ready to allow his opponent a chance to redeem himself. In

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his words, despite having allowed England many chances to redeem her ancient promises, it never yielded results, presumably because morally and materially [England] … has been brought to the verge of exhaustion and decay by the bureaucratic rule and any further acquiescence in servitude will result in that death-sleep of centuries from which a nation, if it ever awakes at all, wakes emaciated, feeble and unable to resume its true ran rank in the list of the peoples. (280)

Disillusioned with the Moderate mode of opposition to the British rule which succeeded ‘in breaking the unity and weakening the force of resistance, [led to a situation when] India sank into those last depths of degradation’ (279), Aurobindo realised why the so-called Extremist means were resorted to at the drop of a hat by many Nationalists. Separating himself from the Extremist modes of redressal of grievances, he insisted that by designing passive resistance, he designed ‘the last chance of escaping the necessity of extremism’ (280). This unambiguous statement is a reinforcement of the claim that it will be conceptually myopic if Aurobindo is clubbed with the ‘Extremists’. It was clearly evident further when he firmly declared that ‘defensive resistance is the sole alternative to that ordeal of sanguinary violence on both sides through which all other countries … have been compelled to pass, only at last ‘embracing Liberty over a heap of corpses’ (280). At one level, this argument was a firm critique of Extremism which disproves the argument that he was one of the Extremists along with other Nationalists who resorted to violence to fulfil their objective. At another level, he persuasively argued that passive resistance was probably the most effective mode of challenging British rule by involving the masses in general which means that (a) he articulated those views which gained popularity during the Gandhian phase of the Nationalist campaign, and (b) he also realised that it was perhaps the best option to effectively counter the well-entrenched British rule which survived not merely by its access to instruments of coercive power but also by the support of a large section of Indians who happily associated themselves with the rulers as it was a passport for partisan gains.

Passive Resistance: Its Methods While delving into the methods, Aurobindo was categorical in suggesting that passive resistance was different from active or aggressive resistance. As he explained, while the latter aimed at harming the government, the method of passive resistance was ‘to abstain from doing something by [the participants in the campaign] … would be helping the Government’ (281). This was an act of

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omission which meant that the participants withdrew themselves from supporting the administration that was solely exploitative in character. While defending the point that passive resistance was superior to other available means, Aurobindo further argued that its principal aim was to make administrative under present conditions impossible by an organized refusal to do anything which shall help either British commerce in the exploitation of the country or British officialdom in the administration of it, - unless and until the conditions are changed in the matter to the extent demanded by the people [which is] … summed up in one word, Boycott. (281)

Boycott was articulated by resorting to the denial of help in running the government. It was a double-edged sword: on the one hand, it was an attack on British commercial endeavours and, on the other hand, it was also a threat to the administration since without the support of the Indians, it was difficult for the rulers to execute the policy they adopted to exploit and also oppress the ruled. Aghast with foreign exploitation of the country that led to continual bleeding of her resources, Aurobindo thus suggested that the most effective means was ‘the refusal … to purchase foreign and especially British goods or to condone their purchase by others. By an organized and relentless boycott of British goods, [he proposed to] … render the further exploitation of the country impossible’ (281–282). The second component of passive resistance was to boycott government offices, particularly the judiciary, which, instead of being impartial, became an instrument of the government. As a result, the judgments given by the judges were just a reinforcement of what the administration desired. So, Aurobindo gave a call to boycott the judiciary by saying that ‘we refuse … to have any resort to the alien court of justice and by an organized judicial boycott propose to make the bureaucratic administration of justice impossible while these conditions continue’ (282). This was also a smart design since with the refusal of the Indians to cooperate with the judiciary, its functioning was likely to come to a standstill which created conditions in which the judges were unable to function. This was the aim of this strategy. Aurobindo was aware that British rule continued to remain meaningful only because it was aided by the Indians; once that support was withdrawn, it would be impossible for the court to operate. The final component was articulated by a clamour for boycotting the executive administration because of its arbitrariness, its meddling and inquisitorial character, its thoroughness of repression, its misuse of the police for the repression instead of protection of the people; … hence, we refuse to tolerate

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any paternal interference in our public activities, and by an organized boycott of the executive, we propose to reduce executive control and interference to a mere skeleton of its former self. (282)

It was obvious that without the Indians’ support to the British government, its functioning would immediately come to a halt which Aurobindo articulated by saying that ‘if Indians no longer consented to teach in Government school or work in Government offices, or serve the alien as police, the administration could not continue for a day’ (282). In a nutshell, the aim of passive resistance is largely to harm the rulers by resorting to boycott in its real connotation. Hence, the boycott of schools, colleges, government offices and the judiciary, among others, was suggested by Aurobindo while charting out a new course of Nationalist strategy which was qualitatively different from that of the Moderates. One must add a caveat here: Aurobindo did not favour the refusal of tax to the government which clearly suggests that he was constrained by his class prejudices in the sense that it was likely to cause distress to those, especially the zamindars who pay tax to the rulers. Being aware that in Europe, passive resistance also entailed the refusal to pay taxes, he, however, was opposed to its adoption in the case of India since, to quote him, ‘all the precedents for this form of resistance were accompanied by certain conditions which do [are] not as yet obtain[ed] in India’ (284). By referring to the Irish example, he further argued that the protesters declined to pay taxes to the landlords who were brutal and unjust to the tillers of the soil. In India, the situation was not similar because the foreign bureaucracy has usurped the functions of the landlord, except in Bengal where a refusal to pay rents would injure not landlord-class supported by the alien but a section of our countrymen who have been intolerably harassed, depressed and burdened by bureaucratic policy and bureaucratic exaction and fully sympathize, for the most part, with the national movement. (285)

Besides highlighting his weaknesses for the class to which he belonged, Aurobindo’s statement also proves that he was not different from his colleagues in the Nationalist campaign as regards the protection of the class interests of his ilk. The tillers of the soil were exploited tooth and nail by the landlords and their minions, especially when the former left the villages to settle in Calcutta. There emerged a new class, known as jotedars who acted on behalf of the absentee landlords; with the disappearance of the actual owners of land, these jotedars became most powerful and were never restrained in exacting as much

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rent as possible from the hapless cultivators. Many examples can be cited to show that the Calcutta-based zamindars were interested in sustaining their zamindaries, and hence, they hardly monitored those who worked on their behalf. The result was disastrous, particularly in East Bengal, where Muslim peasants constituted a majority in most of the landed estates owned by Hindu zamindars. This peculiar religious texture of peasants and zamindars also fuelled communal sentiments which flared up on many occasions and finally led to India’s vivisection on the basis of the claim that Hindus and Muslims were two separate nations. Aurobindo appeared to have understood the implication of such a condition when he stated that the refusal to pay taxes would be the last resort when other means became ineffective. ‘The refusal to pay tax would,’ he thus argued, ‘therefore, inevitably bring about the last desperate struggle between the forces of national aspiration and alien repression. It would be in the nature of an ultimatum from the people to the Government’ (285). A careful reading of Aurobindo’s warning, however, reveals that he was not just governed by class constraints but he was also a little restrained, presumably because of the organisational weaknesses of the National Congress. In order to illustrate the point, he referred to the processes that led to American independence in 1787. It was easier for the Americans to meaningfully combat the alien authority since all the sixteen states joined hands together to fight the last battle for independence. Once the other efforts failed, the Nationalist Americans resorted to the final battle which was complemented by a solid organisation to support their endeavour. The situation was not the same in India since (a) the Nationalist organisation was not as strong as it was expected to be given myriad factors, including the Muslims’ claim for a sovereign state for them, (b) the diversity was also a serious constraint to develop a unified opposition against the British, and (c) the role of the loyal princely states which were governed directly by the British but received support against attack on the rulers from within and also outside. Hence, Aurobindo defended his point by saying that for the no-taxes policy to succeed, what was required was a close organization linking province to province and district to district and powerful central authority representing a single will of the whole nation which could alone fight on equal terms the final struggle of defensive resistance with bureaucratic repression. Such an organization and authority have not yet been developed. (286)

Obvious here are the limitations of the National Congress which was, out and out, a loyalist organisation so long as the Moderates reigned supreme in the Indian Nationalist battle. With the consolidation of

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New Nationalism of which Aurobindo was one of the chief exponents, a new voice emerged in the Nationalist struggle. Hence, Aurobindo’s apprehension was not unfounded although he endeavoured to work towards strengthening the National Congress by making it proactive and sensitive to those issues affecting the hapless people. As a result, not only was the National Congress infused with a new zeal, but it also started spreading its tentacles beyond the metropolitan city of Calcutta. Under these circumstances, passive resistance was perhaps the most effective design to attain the goal the Nationalists aspired to achieve which Aurobindo articulated by saying that the new politics, therefore, confines itself for the time to the policy of lawful abstention from any kind of cooperation with the Government, - the policy of boycott which is capable of gradual extension, leaving to the bureaucracy the onus of forcing on a more direct, sudden and dangerous struggle. [Hence,] … its principle at present is not ‘no representation, no taxation’, but ‘no control, no assistance’. (286)

As the above statement reveals, conceptually, Aurobindo was persuaded to adopt a ‘no-tax’ policy; he was, however, not willing to take it to its logical conclusion under those circumstances when the Nationalist organisation was not as strong as was required to accomplish the goal. It shows that, being an astute strategist, he did not attempt to explore a policy which, he knew, was futile at that juncture of India’s Nationalist campaign. In its place, by insisting on passive resistance, he also proved that, as a Nationalist activist, it was most important not only to avoid defeat since it was demoralising for the participants but also to adopt a mode which was assured of success in adverse circumstances.

Passive Resistance: Its Obligations Moderates took ample care to not embarrass the government before raising their voice for they believed, as Aurobindo highlighted, that ‘as a subject nation, we should altogether ignore the Government and turn our attention to emancipation by self-help and self-development’ (287). Since the New Nationalists devised a mechanism to directly attack the colonisers, they were even attacked by the Moderates as ‘evil advocates of non-resistance and submission to political wrong and injustice’ (287). It was expected of them, stated Aurobindo, since the Moderates were beneficiaries of being loyal to the rulers. Passive resistance to the unlawful acts of the government approximated to, under no circumstances, acceptance of injustice; instead, it was a method of hurting British economic-cum-political interests, argued

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Aurobindo. While elaborating his point further, he also mentioned that their method was different from that of the Moderates which was verbal only – prayer, petition and protest; the method, [the New Nationalists] proposed was practical, - boycott; … it was no offence by law to abstain from Government schools or Government courts of justice or the help and protection of a fatherly executive or the use of British goods; nor is it illegal to persuade others to join in our abstention. (287)

Completely different from the Moderate methods, passive resistance was a voice of protest articulated in terms of well-laid-out steps of challenging an unjust rule. Neither was the method illegal since the British laws never forbade people from adopting policies which were, otherwise, outlawed. The purpose of the New Nationalists was to ‘enlighten [the ruled] on the actual and inevitable results of irresponsible rule by aliens and dominance of a single community’ (288). If that was considered to be a punishable offence, we were, argued Aurobindo, ‘guilty of breaking the law of the alien’ (288). Nor was it a violation of the well-established legally endorsed norms and values. It would have branded the New Nationalists as ‘escapist’ had they not conveyed the message to those subject to unlawful governance that this government was illegal since it failed to protect the interests of its lawful citizens in India. So, they were under obligation to discharge their duty ‘to drive home to the public mind the congenital and incurable evils of the present system of government so that they may insist on being swept away in order to make room for a more healthy and natural state of things. (288)

Their duty was also ‘to press upon the people the hopelessness of appealing to the bureaucracy to reform itself and the uselessness of any partial measures’ (288). In so doing, the participants in the struggle were simply drawing the attention of the government with a view to redressing their grievances. Aurobindo was also aware that this was certain to provoke the ruling bureaucracy to adopt punitive measures since it was a threat to the continuity of its dominance and perpetuation of its control given the unconditional support of the de facto rulers. In that case, if one was incarcerated by resorting to the tactics of passive resistance, one ‘must willingly and … rejoicingly accept the punishment’ (289). By emphasising that ‘the passive resister must therefore take up his creed with the certainty of having to suffer for it’, Aurobindo’s aim was twofold: on the one hand, he made it clear that it was a qualitatively different mode of expressing

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one’s resentment against unlawful and brutal foreign rule which was likely to punish those who resorted to passive resistance since it was a direct threat to its stability; on the other hand, he also prepared the participants for being ready to face the consequences, including going to the gaol. This was a struggle with no immediate return as Aurobindo envisioned—for passive resistance to succeed, what was required most was to build a mindset which allowed the participants to remain steadfastly committed to the cause they aspired to attain. The road was thus not an easy one since one needed to be prepared to face punishments in view of the fact that the British bureaucracy was likely to be harsh in containing the passive resisters. It was both lawful and justified for the ruled since they were battling against a system of oppression that drew its sustenance from illegal means of appropriating power and authority. Since this was the case, breaking unjust laws and regulations was not just desirable but also, as Aurobindo felt, ‘a duty of the passive resisters’ (290). He also warned that the British police lost no opportunity to wrongly punish a passive resister by creating conditions in which it was proved that by insisting on a boycott, the Nationalist activists actually forced the shopkeepers to shut down their shops. A passive resister should be alert to such circumstances, and it was likely to happen since the bureaucracy was always trained to govern in accordance with the decisions of the governing elites. This was also a situation which Aurobindo highlighted to argue that the executive order banning peaceful meetings for spreading the message of a boycott was also illegal since in a democracy there should never be a ban on the congregation of people with government permission to discuss pressing issues. The Moderates were also not allowed to have their conferences since they were also clubbed with the New Nationalists; this infuriated them although it led to the development of a bridge between them and the latter. It was a strategic success for the Nationalists regardless of politico-ideological differences which Aurobindo captured by saying that the claim of British rule was unjust, being accepted by ‘politicians of both schools [who accepted that] … to resist an unjust coercive order or interference is not only justifiable but, under given circumstances, a duty’ (291). So far, Aurobindo focused on the British bureaucracy and also the Moderates who, he felt, were natural enemies of the politico-ideological preferences of the New Nationalists. Now, he cautioned the participants of the ‘unnatural adversaries … [who were] … self-seeking and treacherous of our countrymen’ (291). It was not always easy to identify these perfidious individuals. What was thus required was to remain alert and once they were detected, the Nationalists needed to be tough in simply throwing them out of the organisation. He also suggested that one

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had to be vigilant enough to completely disconnect him from society. Here, Aurobindo, by drawing on one of the most efficient tools for containing such discredited individuals, suggested a social boycott as a mechanism. It was ‘a legitimate and indispensable method against those guilty of treason to the nation’ (292). On the whole, as far as obligations were concerned, a passive resister followed the Nationalist direction since it corresponded to what he/she desired to fulfil. It was, in other words, a mental affinity between the resister and the Nationalist goal which was at the root of the success of passive resistance, argued Aurobindo. There were examples, however, to show that, on many occasions, especially in East Bengal, the passive resisters forced those who declined to accept the boycott which figured prominently as one of the important agendas in the Swadeshi campaign. By insisting on boycott of persons ‘guilty of deliberate disobedience to the national will’, Aurobindo did not seem to take into account that application of force was not the right way of popularising boycott which, in fact, alienated many who were otherwise supporters of the Nationalist campaign. As Rabindranath Tagore showed, in his novel, Ghare Baire (1916), how the Muslims in general were alienated from the Swadeshi campaign simply because the activists preferred to deploy force to persuasion. One of the protagonists, Nikhilesh, underlined this aspect of the Swadeshi Movement which weakened the campaign to a significant extent because Muslims and many poor Hindus became staunch critics of the endeavour. In fact, Aurobindo’s insistence on a social boycott of individuals opposed to the boycott of British goods was one of the factors that caused a fissure between the Swadeshi activists and their supporters. One, however, finds concerted attempts at implementing the social boycott agenda by the New Nationalists neither in the texts of Aurobindo nor in any of the Swadeshi activists who zealously took part in the campaign. Perhaps, it was their failure to realise how the policy of forceful deployment of boycotts and the social boycott of the so-called deviants radically changed the texture of Indian nationalism by segmenting the Muslims from the Nationalist platform. Aurobindo’s notion of passive resistance which was clearly different from that of Gandhi, as we will see later, did not rule out active or aggressive resistance. While justifying aggressive resistance as a duty when a passive resister was dealt with illegally, he further suggested that by clinging to aggressive resistance, he/she was performing a duty towards the motherland. According to him, so long as the action of the executive is peaceful and within the rules of the fight, the passive resister scrupulously maintains his attitude of passivity, but he is not bound to do so a moment beyond. To

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submit to illegal or violent methods of coercion, to accept outrage and hooliganism as part of the legal procedure of the country is to be guilty of cowardice, and, by dwarfing national manhood, to sin against the divinity within ourselves and the divinity in our motherland. (294)

Explicit here is how Aurobindo defined passive resistance which remained passive as long as the interaction between the protesters and the police remained free from violence. The moment the latter resorted to coercive action, the former was no longer bound by the commitment which was given earlier. In fact, to be passive was a disservice to oneself and also to the motherland which, in Aurobindo’s perception was ‘cowardice’ which meant that if a passive resister violently attacked the police, it was justified. Unlike Gandhi, Aurobindo had no qualms to forcefully argue that the moment coercion of this kind is attempted, passive resistance ceases and active resistance becomes a duty [which he further elaborated by saying that] if the instruments of the executive choose to disperse our meeting by breaking the heads of those present, the right of self-defence entitles us not merely to defend our heads but to retaliate on those of the head-breakers. (294)

So, passive resistance is a policy of tit for tat which entails that if the passive resisters faced coercion, they had every reason to indulge in violence to show that so long as they were treated as per law, they remained committed to peaceful protest; if it was otherwise, they immediately gave up their commitment to peaceful opposition. The New Nationalist campaign did not thus ‘include meek submission to illegal outrage, nor it has no intention of overstressing the passivity at the expense of resistance’ (295). Aurobindo justified the transformation of passive resistance from being passive to aggressive by referring to the obvious fact that ‘we must recognize the fact that beyond a certain point passive resistance puts a strain on human endurance which our nature cannot endure’ (296). This also confirms his contention that ‘passive resistance is not an inelastic dogma because … we preach defensive resistance mainly passive in its methods at present, but active whenever active resistance is needed’ (296). The argument is crystal clear since it left no ambiguity in conveying that passive resistance did not necessarily mean passive resistance; it was so under specific circumstances that it immediately changed to aggressive resistance in case the canons of peaceful protests were disrespected by the perpetrators of injustice. So far, he argued like a politician who was governed by his politicoideological preferences. At the end of his discussion on the obligations

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of passive resisters, he defended the change from passive to active resistance in terms of his spiritual commitment to the motherland. It was evident when he stated that ‘we recognize no political object of worship except the divinity in our motherland, no present object of political endeavour except liberty and no method or action as politically good or evil except as it truly helps or hinders our progress towards national emancipation’ (297). In his perception of service to motherland, he was not willing to accord space to endeavours which were undertaken to undermine her; this was the main mantra of New Nationalism which was rooted in Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay’s nationalistic novel, Anandamath (1882), which created the mother goddess as a source of inspiration to the Nationalists who fought for liberating the chained Mother from the clutches of the Muslim ruler. He was also equally emphatic in declaring that liberty was of prime importance for an enslaved nation; for emancipation, the committed devotees of Mother were hardly deterred from adopting means that they felt were appropriate for her salvation; what is striking here was his emphasis on liberty which remained integral to the Mother’s complete freedom; finally, liberation of the Mother who was imagined to be the nation was thus linked to the latter’s liberation; by implication, what it meant was that by being committed to the nation, the passive resisters were instantaneously linked with the wider campaign for liberating the Mother. Here Aurobindo was most strategic in his priorities since he knew that in Bengal, the notion of Mother and service to her were most effective in garnering support for the campaign for fulfilling the Nationalist goal. It was not therefore surprising that his colleagues among the New Nationalists were all persuaded to believe that the emancipation of India from the foreign yoke was tantamount to the liberation of the enslaved Mother. Hence, it was a holy responsibility of the New Nationalists to participate in passive resistance for it was the only means to fulfil the final goal they aspired to achieve even by making supreme sacrifices.

Conclusion The texts on passive resistance were serialised in Bande Mataram between 9 and 23 April 1907; they explicated Aurobindo’s idea of passive resistance in a context when the mendicant nationalism of the Moderates was vehemently criticised since it was basically a policy of appeasement of the Raj. With six chapters and a conclusion, Aurobindo developed his idea of passive resistance which was one of the effective modes of anti-British counter-offensive to wrest Swaraj or complete self-government without

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interference. The idea approximated the complete independence that the Congress adopted in the 1929 Lahore Congress. Apart from seeking to attain undiluted self-government, passive resistance was characterised by three important features: (a) It was a scathing critique of the Moderate design of nationalism through petition and prayer which was rejected by the New Nationalists as nothing but ‘a timid surrender to the ruler, the teaching of false friends who hope to keep us in perpetual subjection, foolish to reason, false to experience’ (98); (b) self-development by selfhelp which was proposed to be followed ‘to completely abdicate the habit of dependence and helplessness and reawaken and exercise our half-atrophied powers of self-government’ (299); and (c) parallel to the above was the policy of organised resistance to the present government for being brutal and anti-Indian. Aurobindo’s passive resistance did not exclude the deployment of active or aggressive resistance. If necessary, he also implied that the Nationalists, to fulfil their mission, were allowed to resort to armed revolt which further means that passive resistance was not always passive; it could be active if it was needed to attain the goal; second, passive resistance was thus a clamour for violence under specific circumstances. What was thus privileged was the goal and not the means which was prominent in Gandhi’s notion of passive resistance. Finally, the nature of despotism determined the form of resistance: if the authority was brutal and resorted to violence to quell the mass protest, the passive resisters had no qualms about being peaceful which meant that the nature of the campaign was contingent on the nature of resistance meted out by the rulers over campaigners. So, Aurobindo, by insisting that the circumstances ‘determine what form of resistance is best justified’ (299), clarified that he was not rigid, as Gandhi was, in so far as the means were concerned. A careful study of the politico-ideological agenda of the New School reveals that it was not an outright rejection of the Moderate means. As Aurobindo explained, the first step was to send a charter of demands in the form of a petition which was only ‘a courteous form of demand’ (300). Being aware that it was not enough to help them attain their objective, Aurobindo justified the application of boycott in its true form. His notion of boycott was also a means to create a mindset for buying Swadeshi goods. So, Swadeshi, in the New Nationalist perspective had twin purposes: on the one hand, it was an attempt to popularise homemade products; on the other hand, it was also meant for boycotting foreign goods which Aurobindo captured by stating that we would not only buy our own goods, but boycott British goods; not only have our own schools, but boycott Government

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institutions; not only erect our Arbitration Courts, but boycott bureaucratic justice; not only organize our own league of defence but have nothing to do with the bureaucratic Executive except when we cannot avoid it. (300)

Explicit here are the demands of being self-reliant, not only economically but also administratively. These ideas were based on the disillusionment with the British system of governance which never faced serious challenges till the rise of the New Nationalists. As was mentioned above, Moderate nationalism, popularly known as mendicant nationalism, was hardly a threat to the empire although its contribution cannot be entirely dismissed because it also created a mindset with the inputs that there were important issues pertaining to the administration that needed to be addressed. Dadabhai Naoroji’s Poverty and Un-British Rule in India (1901) is illustrative here; similarly, Surendranath Banerjea’s A Nation in the Making (1925) is a testimony of the changes in the nature of nationalism since the formation of the Indian National Congress in 1885. In a nutshell, the New Nationalists’ aim was to (a) develop India into a self-governing nation, (b) to protect India with her distinctive socio-cultural and civilisational features and repel attack and opposition impeding her progress, and (c) to press upon and extrude the foreign agency in each field of activity with the ultimate aim of supplanting it. What it means is that aggressive nationalism was expected to contribute to India’s development as a self-dependent polity at another level; it also provided a scheme to gradually create an ambience in which the concerns for Swadeshi prevailed in India. We must note a caveat by reiterating a point mentioned above. None of the members of the New Nationalists ever pushed the agenda of no tax with the argument that the prevalent milieu was not prepared to pursue the aim although the argument that they deliberately avoided this avenue was contrary to their class interests. One of the reasons was certainly located in their endeavour towards protecting the Nationalist landlords and also businessmen who extended financial help to the Nationalist campaign. Hence, it was natural that they did not adopt such a step at that point in time even at the cost of annoying many of their supporters at the grassroots who were victims of exploitation by those landlords and those Indians involved in commercial ventures. As mentioned above, the New Nationalists also insisted on the creation of ‘a strong central authority to carry out the will of the nation, supported by a close and active organization of village, town and province’ (301). Implicit here is an argument in favour of a centralised leadership which did not seem to be tenable given India’s diversity. The

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point shall be clear if it is contrasted with Gandhi’s idea of leadership. With his belief in decentralised leadership, Gandhi always insisted that strong regional leadership was preferable since it was possible for those working in the regions to identify the issues which were likely to be effective in building an organised attack on the perpetrators of injustice. At the all-India level, political independence was accepted as the main goal; but, at the regional or grassroots levels, what was critical was to identify the local issues to garner support for a campaign for redressal. It was illustrated in the case of the 1919 Champaran Satyagraha which was organised against the Teen-Kathia system of the agricultural system of production (which meant that the peasants were forced to produce indigo in two-thirds of the land they possessed) by the local organisers; in a similar vein, in the 1919 Kheda Satyagraha, the demand for waiver of rent by those affected by famine—the Nationalist campaign immediately gathered many against the authority since the issue united all those who happily joined the movement since it was meant to give them relief. Many examples can be cited. What is significant here is to highlight that the suggestion for a centralised leadership did not augur well with all those associated with New Nationalism. Nonetheless, there was no debate that New Nationalism ushered in a new era in the Nationalist campaign in India by introducing means to harm the empire by adopting policies required for fulfilling the objectives. Unlike the Moderates who aspired to survive under the tutelage of the alien rulers, the New Nationalists, from the very outset, campaigned for India’s salvation. Being aware that the road to liberation was not so easy as the British were so well entrenched, Aurobindo acknowledged the difficulties, and yet, he was confident that with mass efforts it was not impossible. Hence, for him, ‘the work of national emancipation is a great and holy yajna of which boycott, Swadeshi, national education and every other activity, great and small, are only major or minor parts’ (302). The task was, in other words, difficult but not insurmountable, felt a confident Aurobindo. To attain liberty, the New Nationalists were ready to make sacrifices since it also meant, to them, an offering to the motherland. This was an integral characteristic of New Nationalism which built its strong support base by espousing freedom which was absent in the earlier Nationalist venture at the behest of the Moderates. On the basis of his detailed analysis of the methods for liberating the chained Mother, Aurobindo developed a new model which he christened Political Vedantism. While defining his conceptual parameter, he underlined that ‘our attitude is a Political Vedantism [which was nothing but] the divine realization that India’s emancipation is necessary for liberating human beings who are deprived of freedom by the hegemony of the strong over the weak’ (302). Hence, he insisted that ‘emancipation

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is our aim [and] … to that end each nation must practice the political creed which is most suited to its temperament and circumstances’. (303) He further noted that India ‘must have Swaraj in order to live for the world … as a free people for the spiritual and intellectual benefit of the human race’.16 Political Vedantism involves the liberation of India which was a stepping stone towards the emancipation of humanity as a whole. Conceptually, it was a unique idea since with the removal of oppressors from the world, it would become a place free from the exploitation of human beings by their fellow brethren. It was not an easy task since it required a radical metamorphosis in the prevalent approach to humanity. Aurobindo, however, provided cues to accomplish the goal. According to him, ‘the true source of human liberty, human equality, human brotherhood is the freedom of man’s inner spirit’.17 By linking what contributed to human well-being with the changes in one’s inner spirit, he had in mind the dialectical interrelationship between political ideals with changes in one’s psychological inclinations. It was well stated by an analyst when he mentioned that ‘in the structure of political reality envisaged by Aurobindo, the recognition of the constitutional or legal rights of liberty and equality is not enough, for the ideal of liberty is not fully achieved without equality and fraternity, and more importantly fraternity’.18 At the political level, he emphasised the importance of legal and constitutional rights seeking to guarantee liberty and equality; while pitching his argument at the spiritual level, he also identified the limitation of this conceptualisation, for the change of the inner spirit or the mindset was critical for these rights to be indiscriminately made available to all. This is the crux of his notion of Political Vedantism. As argued above, his ideal of freedom had a wider sense because he always believed that India’s political freedom was hardly meaningful unless it was complemented by the freedom of humanity cutting across sociocultural and geographical barriers. Hence, he rightly argued that the struggle for political freedom was an aid to a total and endless struggle for ‘true freedom’ which meant that the entire human race was immune from sources of ‘unfreedom’. Out of the plethora of texts he left for posterity, it is clear that for him, revolution meant ‘more than a series of sporadic boycott, fiery protests, and violent demonstrations: it included a large-scale programme of political, economic, educational, social and spiritual reconstruction’ (60). As a dharma yudha (battle for establishing righteousness in human behaviour), it must be ‘continuously fought simultaneously on several planes’ (60). So, Political Vedantism was not a single shot; it was a creative blending of struggle waged at various levels of human existence which reaffirms that political struggle was just one of the significant means to carry forward the battle against those evil forces inhibiting humanity to flourish in its true form. Aurobindo’s

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conceptualisation of Political Vedantism also led Bipin Chandra Pal to characterise India’s political struggle against colonialism as Vedantic Nationalism, which entailed that the movement for India’s salvation was not just political—it was also a spiritual mission to spread the message of Vedantic (Upanishadic) texts highlighting that freedom from British rule was dialectically entwined with the spiritual uplift of humanity.19 The idea does not seem to be very different from the one that Aurobindo upheld in his text on passive resistance. There is, however, a general point to respond to the question of why the New Nationalists resorted to Vedantic ideology as a mode of mobilisation support for the political goal. Explanation is offered by highlighting that it was likely to be more effective in garnering the support of caste Hindus and also the educated middle class of Bengal. As it has been argued, those identified as New Nationalists propounded a nationalist theory couched in traditional religious imagery understandable to those who had not been exposed to English education, on the one hand; on the other hand, the emphasis on political Vedanta combined with a secular appeal to the political and economic interest of the zamindars served to reintegrate the Bengali English-educated elite with the rural upper castes.20

The choice of Political Vedantism as a model was thus strategically governed. New Nationalists were keen to expand their sphere of influence beyond the metropolitan cities to the villages, which necessitated the articulation of the Nationalist voice in a completely new fashion. Acceptance of religious idioms did not thus mean that they were persuaded to guide the campaign as a religious crusade; instead, they preferred to couch their politico-ideological priorities in such a way as to gain maximum dividends. As history shows, Aurobindo’s Political Vedantism acted decisively in taking the Nationalist campaign to areas of Bengal which remained peripheral during the Moderate phase of Indian nationalism. For Aurobindo, the ultimate aim was thus self-realisation because unless one was drawn to the idea that national freedom was at the roots of one’s salvation, it was impossible to weave them together for the final battle against the detractors. Two important points need emphasis here. First, being persuaded to believe that passive resistance was likely to succeed once it was endorsed by those involved in the struggle for emancipation, Aurobindo rightly pointed out the importance of self-realisation; otherwise, the entire effort was futile. Second, unlike Rabindranath Tagore and Gandhi, who also linked political freedom with freedom from torture meted out to a section of humanity in India due to the nurturing of socio-cultural prejudices

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by many, Aurobindo remained silent on this issue since in his writings and speeches, he always clamoured for political freedom. One may perhaps logically surmise that as Aurobindo wrote at the beginning of the 20th century, he took upon himself the responsibility of spreading the message for political emancipation; at that juncture, it was, as he conceived, justified in a context when nationalism was articulated as a mode of seeking favour from the rulers. With the consolidation of New Nationalism following the split in the 1907 Surat Congress, the idea that India’s political emancipation was prior to any other goal was privileged. However, it would be wrong to dismiss that Aurobindo had hardly had an inkling of this aspect of exploitation of human beings on the basis of instinctive socio-cultural prejudices since he was always a priest of humanism. One thus had reasons to believe that as a pragmatic and astute Nationalist, he strategically remained silent in this regard.

Concluding Observations The aforementioned discussion elaborates on the methods Aurobindo delineated to distinguish his approach to emancipation from his erstwhile colleagues championing Moderate nationalism. With his firm belief that Moderates flourished by being servile to the British rulers, he sharpened his attack on them by saying that ‘the Congress has never been and has made no honest endeavour to be, a popular body’.21 From his disdain, one is now well equipped to explain why Moderate nationalism failed to provide an effective alternative even during the late 19th century when the masses became restive as they were brutalised by the rulers. The reason for its failure to become a true Nationalist platform was located in the fact that its imagination was one in which ‘nation’ included people unfitted for political rights, in which politics was identified with that domain of public life created and made possible by British rule, in which the inadequacies of ‘the people’ were measured by their distance from this domain, in which the educated elites had to present the poor, rough and ignorant masses, and where the continuation of British rule was necessary for its eventual supersession.22

So, the differences between Aurobindo and his Moderate compatriots were fundamental. It is evident that the Moderates never included the masses in the real sense of the term because they deserved to be pushed off the public domain as they were illiterate and ignorant. While castigating his erstwhile colleagues for being so ‘elitist’ in their approach

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and perception towards ‘the people’ at large, Aurobindo initiated a new trend and also created a new language of nationalism contrary to what remained prominent so far. Aurobindo’s formulation of methods of Nationalist counter-offensive—boycott and passive resistance— established new vocabularies of protest which were unprecedented and thus novel. There is another important aspect which cannot be underplayed. Both Aurobindo and Gandhi adopted passive resistance as a mode of challenging British authority, and yet they differed from each other in conceptualising the phenomenon. As mentioned above, Aurobindo was not as rigid as Gandhi in the sense that he did not rule out the application of force if it was required to attain the goal which means that the end was prior to the means. In other words, if, for the attainment of the politico-ideological objectives, violence was required, he would not have restrained those resorting to passive resistance. Holding a diametrically opposite view, Gandhi was, under no circumstances, persuaded to sacrifice the sanctity of means even if that meant the withdrawal of the campaign, as was visible in the context of the 1920– 1922 Non-cooperation Movement following the outbreak of violence in Chauri Chaura in the erstwhile United Provinces. Being very clear about how he conceptualised passive resistance contrary to how Aurobindo conceived the phenomenon, Gandhi thus argued that passive resistance is a method of securing rights by personal suffering; it is the reverse of resistance by arms. When I refuse to do a thing that is repugnant to my conscience, I use soul-force. For instance, the Government of the day has passed a law which is applicable to me. I do not like it. If by using violence I force the Government to repeal the law, I am employing what may be termed body-force. If I do not obey the law and accept the penalty for its breach, I use soul-force. It involves sacrifice of self.23

There is hardly any need for elaboration here. It is crystal clear that both of them favoured passive resistance, but their conceptualisation was differently textured. For Gandhi, violence was an anathema because his aim was to win over the enemy by inflicting suffering on oneself, while Aurobindo was very clear that passive resistance could be active or aggressive resistance if the situation so required. The elaboration of Satyagraha by Gandhi as a mode of resistance reveals that his conceptualisation was radically different from that of Aurobindo in three ways: first, instead of being a strategy which passive resistance was, Satyagraha was not practised as a strategic device; instead, it was an individual search for exploring the internal ‘truth’; hence, for the Mahatma, Satyagraha was a design for ‘self-help’, ‘self-sacrifice’ and ‘faith in God’.

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Second, passive resistance was also a strategic weapon which did not completely abdicate the use of violence which, according to Gandhi, was contrary to his understanding of non-violent resistance. He thus exhorted that a satyagrahee harbors no ill-will or bitterness against the perpetrators of violence; he must not even employ needlessly offensive language against the evil person, however unrelieved his evil might be [since] … it is an article of faith with every satyagrahi that there is none so fallen in the world but can be converted by love.24

Finally, Satyagraha, unlike passive resistance, never rescinded love even if that led to insufferable emotional and bodily pain. As love constituted the main pillar of Satyagraha, it ‘makes no distinction between kinsmen and strangers, young and old, man and woman, friend and foe [because] … love does not burn others, it burns itself. Therefore, a satyagrahi … will joyfully suffer even unto death’.25 A careful reading of what Gandhi stated above underlines that his approach to resistance hardly corresponded with that of Aurobindo because, for him, the achievement of a goal was important, and once the detractors resorted to means other than non-violence, the passive resisters should not have restrained themselves from being violent. This was how he resolved the political uncertainty faced by those resorting to passive resistance, at one level; at another, he encouraged the participants to go all the way since nationalism was also a spiritual force. In his essay, ‘What Is Nationalism’, he clearly stated that ‘nationalism is not a mere political programme. Nationalism is a religion that has come from God.… Nationalism is immortal.… God cannot be killed, God cannot be sent to jail.’26 By equating nationalism with providential authority, Aurobindo elevated nationalism to ‘an altogether different spiritual plane’.27 It does not seem odd to surmise that as a pragmatic Nationalist, he understood that to attract people to the Nationalist cause, it was better to articulate the Nationalist voice in a language that was intelligible to the Indians. It was a smart strategy, especially when the Moderates were designing their mode of protest exclusively in the derivative Western discourses. Aurobindo undertook a new path by drawing on the indigenous sources of knowledge which immediately struck an emotional chord with those who remained dissociated largely because they were not agreeable to the mendicant nationalism of the Moderates. Aurobindo stands out among the Nationalists for two complementary reasons: on the one hand, as a karmayogi (an activist being devoted to his assigned duties), he experimented with modes of protest which succeeded in Ireland and Russia. His doctrine of passive resistance articulated a new language of Nationalist protest which was a break with the past when, at

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the aegis of his erstwhile colleagues who followed constitutional-liberal means, it was inconceivable as a method to harm colonial interests. Boycott and passive resistance were those two means which were meant to destabilize British colonialism. On the other hand, it was Aurobindo who, by propounding emancipation of the colonised as the primary goal of the New Nationalists, also created a space for Gandhian non-violent struggle which unfolded with the 1919 Champaran Satyagraha. By fiercely critiquing Moderate nationalism as mendicant nationalism, not only did he generate a new voice, but also established a new trend in Indian nationalism that gradually engulfed the entire country. He along with his colleagues with compatible mindsets thus ushered in a new era in India’s Nationalist struggle. One must not underplay the role of Lal-Bal-Pal in popularising the politico-ideological voices which were unprecedented perhaps due to the hegemonic presence of the Moderates and also the confinement of Nationalist endeavour to the metropolitan cities. Critical in this chapter is the argument that Aurobindo’s conceptualisation of boycott and passive resistance and their application in the pursuit of the Nationalist goal acted decisively in cementing a bond among those with identical politico-ideological preferences. While Moderate nationalism represented nearly a muzzled voice of the governed since neither did it espouse the cause of the ruled nor it was an endeavour to that effect, it was primarily an annual event when the eminent lawyers of the era delivered verbose speeches appreciating British colonial rule. Contrarily, Aurobindo and his colleagues, identified as New Nationalists, introduced newer modes of articulating Nationalist aspirations in a completely different fashion. It was not just a change of vocabulary—passive resistance and boycott were testimonies of significant ideational metamorphosis. With a detailed exposition of these two interrelated modes which were successfully practised in Ireland and Russia, not only has the argument highlighting the changed texture of nationalism been forcefully made, it is also an evidence-based endeavour to establish that New Nationalism of which Aurobindo was one of the chief exponents paved the way for re-articulating the Nationalist voice completely differently. Whether the voice was completely new needs to be qualified. Unlike the Moderates who uncritically borrowed constitutional liberalism exclusively from Western sources, the New Nationalists also drew on the Irish and Russian experiments of passive resistance to evolve their mode of challenging the empire; what was different, however, was their drive to articulate those derivative modes, passive resistance and boycott, in the language of the Vedas and Vedantic (Upanishads) texts, which not only established them as indigenous modes of opposition but also repudiated those accusing the New Nationalists of being blind imitators like their Moderate counterparts.

4 AUROBINDO A Creative Educationist Among the Nationalists, Aurobindo Ghose joined the Nationalist campaign not as an activist but as a teacher in the national school in Baroda after his return from England in 1893. His decision was governed by the consideration that education was a powerful instrument for preparing a mindset tuned to the Nationalist cause. It was also an endeavour to counter English education that spread its tentacles in India with government support and also due to the easy availability of jobs for English-educated individuals. Long before the 1922 Gaya Congress, when the Nationalists adopted a resolution for national schools as complementary to the principal agenda of the 1920– 1922 Non-cooperation Movement, it was Aurobindo who initiated a new campaign by insisting on the need for national education in contrast with the British system of education. There were, of course, his colleagues supportive of revolutionary nationalism in opposition to the Moderates, who assisted him in formulating his innovative design for national education. Nonetheless, it was he who put forward a welldefined scheme of nationalist education by attacking the 1835 Macaulay Minutes which formally introduced English education in India. As is well known, the purpose of the minutes was to create a corps of Englisheducated Indians to serve the British rulers in efficiently governing India. Strategically well-tuned to colonial preferences, the Macaulay Minutes were directed to develop a section of Indians who were Indian in blood but English in taste and choice. With the availability of English-educated Indians, the colonial rulers had, at their disposal, those Loyalists who worked in accordance with the rulers’ dictation, which meant that those associated with colonial administration executed the government decisions against their brethren; it was an effective strategy in placing Indians against one another which allowed the British rulers to remain relatively free from the difficulties confronting the officers involved in the implementation of adversarial decisions of their administrative bosses. As they believed that education was critical to nation-building, the Revolutionary Nationalists were involved in designing an alternative to English education. Aurobindo’s colleagues, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and 183

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Bipin Chandra Pal, always referred to the pernicious impact of English education on the Indian minds although they did not evolve a model for the alternative they had in mind. Unlike them, Aurobindo, by devising a model of education, articulated his thoughts on the phenomenon which had the reverberation of Tagore’s tapobon siksha and Gandhi’s naye talim to a significant extent. For him, education was not just the transmission of the available knowledge, it was also a tool to provoke the learners to think innovatively by being interactive with the people and also the environment. Opposed to rote learning, he spoke in the language of Tagore who, in his satirical short story Tota Kahini (the story of a parrot), published in 1918 in the Bengali monthly magazine Sabujpatra, criticised this method of learning. Unless there was spontaneity and interest in what was taught, no education would succeed. By simply setting out well-defined syllabi, the learners were not allowed to think naturally which was itself an impediment to constructive thinking. For the British, it was useful since the rulers wanted Indian clerks to sustain the governance at their behest. Realising that it was a conspiratorial design, the Revolutionary Nationalists privileged national education since without ideational changes it was difficult to successfully launch a campaign opposed to the alien rule. Intrinsic here are two critical points that deserve attention: despite the fact that the Revolutionary Nationalists questioned the constitutional-liberal means of resistance to the British government as they were not effective, the revolutionaries opted for a violent attack on the authorities if necessary. This was one aspect of their politico-ideological strategy. The other aspect was linked with the inculcation of a mindset championing indigenous values and ideas to believe that the derivative discourses from the West were anything but useful for the country. The attempt was, in other words, to change the mental make-up of the learners who appeared to have uncritically accepted English education as axiomatic. Along with the endeavours for preparing a political struggle against colonialism, the revolutionaries thus undertook steps to create a system which was tuned to the needs of the nation. Their aim was also to demonstrate that English education was rootless and it was a colonial design to attain their partisan aims. This was the case because English education was a passport for jobs in government and British agencies; it was not a design to comprehend the reality around the learners. As they were nurtured in a system which was meant to provide clerks for sustaining the government and its other activities, they were trained in a pre-designed mould. Education thus became a machine to prepare human minds in accordance with welldefined politico-ideological predispositions. The learners were denied the opportunity to think creatively as they were assessed on the basis of how efficiently they performed in the examination. So, creative thinking

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was anathema in English education; the objective was to produce a set of English-educated Indians who became useful since they were trained to express themselves in English and were also baptised ideologically to view colonial power as indispensable for the so-called barbarian Indians. The idea was never challenged so effectively even after the Moderates started challenging the empire. For instance, R.C. Dutt in his Economic History of India (1893) or Dadabhai Naoroji in his Poverty and Un-British Rule in India (1901), despite being fiercely critical of how colonialism was responsible for India’s poverty, never referred to the devilish role of education in the consolidation of alien rule in the country. In fact, it was surprising to Tagore when he found that the language of communication in the Congress annual session was English which was challenged by him in the 1907 annual session of the Bengal Provincial Congress held in Pabna when he spoke in his mother tongue, Bangla. It was a historical event since he was the first president of the annual session to have addressed the participants in Bangla and not in English which was the practice being followed so far.1 Not only was the effort novel but it was also highly appreciated by other speakers in this congregation who also spoke in their vernacular.2 Similarly, in 1937, Tagore broke the tradition by delivering the Calcutta University convocation address in Bangla.3 It was a rare continuity of the effort that Ashutosh Mukherjee undertook by offering Tagore an honorary doctorate which was unprecedented because it was for the first time in the history of Calcutta University when an author who always wrote in the vernacular was recognised; the trend continued when Mukherjee’s son, Syama Prasad Mukherjee, who also held the chair, set a new trend by happily accepting Tagore’s request when he conveyed that he preferred to speak in Bangla at Calcutta University’s annual convocation. The poet metaphorically characterised this as ‘a change of season manifested in the blossoming of new flowers in a typical Indian ecosystem in contrast with the established practices when English remained the language of convocation addresses’ (355). The reason for citing these examples is to argue that there were stray incidents when English was discarded by many of Aurobindo’s admirers and cohorts in the Nationalist struggle. What is critical here is to underline the fact that it was Aurobindo who, by being involved in pedagogical training as a teacher in Baroda, can be said to have undertaken steps that gradually became important sources for the Nationalist educationists to realise why education was so integral to political freedom. The aim of the chapter is twofold. First, on the basis of the argument that education was critical to nation-building, the chapter is devoted to the elaboration of Aurobindo’s model with reference to his politicoideological priorities. His aim was to inculcate an inquisitive mind

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that was sensitive to the people and the environment in which learners were raised and nurtured. In other words, what was emphasised was to evolve a system helping the learners strike organic roots with the ecosystem in which they evolved their approaches to humanity. Second, since Aurobindo’s urge to create an alternative system of education corresponded with those of Tagore and Gandhi, the chapter also concentrates on a comparative study of their respective models in this regard. The aim here is to understand the dialectically construed sociocultural processes that led to the evolution of distinctive pedagogies at a particular juncture of the Nationalist campaign in India to defend the argument that the effort was, besides being context-driven, also an upshot of multiple endeavours with nearly the same politico-ideological vision.

Unfolding of a Plan As history shows, there is a dialectical interconnection between a mindset and socio-economic and politico-cultural transformation. One of the reasons supporting the continuity of British rule in India was its success in creating a set of Loyalists who held the British system in high esteem. Not only was colonial rule efficient, they felt, it was also a device to contribute to the attainment of the goal, set out by the rulers. Hence, Macaulay is always credited with his critical role in sustaining colonialism in India by devising a system of education which not only created a milieu but also inculcated a sense of loyalty to those associated with governance. The British rulers maintained the empire, to a large extent, with support from the Indian Loyalists who executed all those brutal policies at the grassroots on their behalf. It was, perhaps, one of the most effective strategies that paid off in the long run. Having realised the importance of education as a mode of developing and also sustaining a sense of commitment to the Nationalist cause, the Revolutionary Nationalists undertook steps in this direction. Being aware that only with the establishment of a system of education, however appropriate it was, it was difficult, if not impossible to achieve the goal. What was thus required was also the building of a mindset in support of Nationalist education. Hence, Aurobindo argued that ‘the first condition of success in this regard is the reawakening of the national movement all along with line, and this can only be done by the organization and resolute activity of the Nationalist party.’4 The argument is crystal clear: unless the concern for the nation was inculcated, the espoused goal remained elusive. What Aurobindo had in mind was his concern for strengthening the Nationalist organisation, that is the Congress, to

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discharge this responsibility. It was a matter of common knowledge that no plan succeeded unless it attracted the takers, which meant that unless there were volunteers to spread the message, it remained confined to the planners and perhaps to a few of their supporters. This was the logic behind Aurobindo insisting on the role of the organisation drawing on the Nationalist aspiration for liberation from the alien rule. What was missing in the drive for national education was the absence of what Aurobindo characterised as ‘nationalist element which gave the nationalist campaign its force and vitality’ (385). Despite being disappointed as ‘national education languishes because the active force has been withdrawn from it’ (385), Aurobindo endeavoured to revitalise the system as he believed that ‘it has not completely perished because a certain amount of nationalist self-devotion has entrenched itself … and holds it against great odds under the most discouraging circumstances’ (386). Having identified the weaknesses, Aurobindo was still hopeful that the system could easily be revamped once a sense of belonging was instilled in the minds of those who continued to be devoted to the Nationalist cause. What runs through his argument was his belief that mere learning was futile; it was meaningful to the learners once they were persuaded to believe that by being educated, they were ready to serve the nation. So, in Aurobindo’s perception, education was not a tool for making oneself fit to get a government job, but a device to inculcate a sense of commitment to the nation. That the people remained indifferent so long as education was just a passport for jobs was proved in Bengal time and again, argued Aurobindo. In its place, he stressed the importance of humanistic concerns as critical to education. One of the reasons for the failure of national education during the Swadeshi period was its failure to champion the Nationalist goal. Unless this was seriously pursued as part of a great movement of national resurgence, unless it is made, visibly to all, a nursery of patriotism and a mighty instrument of national culture [the proposed system] cannot succeed. It is [therefore] foolish to expect men to make great sacrifices while discouraging their hope and enthusiasm. It is not intellectual recognition of duty that compels self-sacrifice in masses of men; it is hope, it is the lofty ardour of a great cause, it is the enthusiasm of a noble and courageous effort. It is amazing that men calling themselves educated and presuming to dabble with public movements should be blind to the fact that the success or failure of National Education is intimately bound up with and, indeed, entirely depends upon the fortunes of the great resurgence which gave it birth. They seem to labour under the delusion that it was an academical and not a national impulse which induced men to support this great effort. (386–387)

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There are three parts to this forceful argument in favour of revitalising national education which appeared to have lost its vitality. First, being aware that the zeal for national education was closely linked with the concern for national liberation which meant that the future of the project rested on the overall Nationalist activities for the attainment of the goal. In other words, education was not delinked from the wider Nationalist concern. Second, Aurobindo’s involvement in the National Education movement, first in Baroda, and then in Bengal, helped him understand that it was difficult to attract learners unless they were convinced that it was also a tool for fulfilling their politico-ideological objectives. This part of the argument reinforces the Revolutionary Nationalists’ view that nationalism might have lost its momentum because of the dissociation of some of the active Nationalists as they discarded the Moderate means and opted for revolutionary nationalism. Nonetheless, they were confident that the Nationalist campaign was certain to regain its strength since the concern for emancipation was no longer confined to a few, but had expanded its appeal to the people at the grassroots. Finally, being critical of the fact that education was just a process of transmission of derivative knowledge, it was also a means to comprehend the prevalent socio-economic and politico-cultural realities because they acted decisively in shaping one’s approach to contemporary issues. The argument reminds us of the views expressed by a famous democratic theorist, John Dewey (1859–1952) who, in his Democracy and Education (1916), argued that the role of education in socio-political transformation was conditioned largely by the fact that it was complementary to the espoused goal that the learners sought to achieve. It was possible once the goal was socially constructed and championed. In simple terms, the argument is a defence of the point that unless education was conceptualised as a tool to realise the sociopolitical objectives, it lost its viability. According to Dewey, education was a process of inculcating values conducive to socio-political aims. Hence, education was conceptualised as a design ‘shaping, forming and moulding activities, linked with the wider humanistic goals … manifested in specific socio-political steps’.5 Education was thus meant to articulate and transmit human impulses. As history demonstrates, having realised the importance of education in consolidating the empire, Macaulay and his colleagues in the India Office in London took special care in developing a system of education tuned to the colonisers’ needs. Unlike the Moderates, the Revolutionary Nationalists felt the need, and during the Swadeshi campaign, they not only articulated an alternative response but also endeavoured to put that into practice although it did not yield results to the extent it was expected. Nonetheless, the campaign led many to devise alternative designs of education which

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was not only accepted as an effective tool to generate interest in the classical texts of India’s intellectual traditions but also an effective device to meaningfully challenge the existent English education. One of the prominent examples was the establishment of the Brahmo Vidyalaya at the behest of Rammohun and his colleagues in the Brahmo Samaj in 1828. The school grew in importance with support from one of the most active members of the Brahmo Samaj, Debendranath Tagore and his illustrious son, Rabindranath Tagore, who founded two schools, Patha Bhawan in 1901 and Siksha Satra in 1928, apart from Visva-Bharati in 1921 which was a beacon of light in education, primarily because it emerged not merely as a centre of higher learning but also a place for generating values complementary to urges for liberation from political and socio-cultural subjugation.

An Alternative Voice As seen in Macaulay’s 1835 Minutes, the aim of the policymakers in the India Office in London was to generate an opinion that India’s intellectual tradition was backward and inappropriate for modern times. Hence, there was no point in wasting time in internalising the values imparted by texts written in Sanskrit, Arabic or Persian. Furthermore, the minutes created a set of blind followers of English education since it created opportunities for earning a livelihood which immediately attracted them and also those, by being persuaded by their predecessors, took to English education happily. So, the task for the Revolutionary Nationalists was not an easy one because (a) English education was established for its marketable value, and (b) in the absence of a meaningful alternative, it was readily accepted in Bengal. Historically, it was a masterstroke by the colonial authority which gave them dividends so long as the Loyalist network in administration remained in place. The Swadeshi activists prepared a blueprint which drew largely on the scheme that Aurobindo articulated in many of his written texts. According to Aurobindo, education was purposive in the sense that it equipped the learners to understand reality better and also to apply wisdom in practice which was absent in English education, presumably because of the politico-ideological objectives that informed the design. Education was thus not just a tool for intellectual enrichment—it was a device to attain goals in accordance with one’s training. By highlighting the limitations of mere intellectual training with a well-defined objective serving the colonial power, Aurobindo thus argued that intellectual search was futile unless it allowed the learners to attain the goal they

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aspired to achieve. In other words, intellectual endeavour needed to be linked with fruitful activities. It was categorically stated when Aurobindo suggested that ‘as practical men we must recognize that pure enthusiasm of knowledge for knowledge’s sake operates only on exceptional minds or in exceptional eras’.6 According to him, in view of the changes in the requirements of human beings in the contemporary world, knowledge for the sake of knowledge seemed to have lost its appeal as ‘in civilized countries’, argued Aurobindo, ‘a general desire for knowledge as motive for education does exist but it is largely accompanied with the earthier feeling that knowledge is necessary to keep up one’s position in society or to succeed in certain lucrative or respectable pursuits & professions’ (358). In India, it was just the opposite, presumably because India’s education system was built by the colonial power for its partisan gains. But in the absence of options, Indian learners had no alternative which was a source of continuity of English education despite having understood the obvious limitations of the system which was almost delinked with the desire to be of use in productive activities. The image is that Indian learners preferred to go for a relatively less challenging task by accepting jobs in offices of the government and other British firms. Unless education was a means to some practical end, it was not only useless but harmful for the nation at large. This was deplorable, maintained Aurobindo who defended his argument by saying that ‘we in this country have confused education with the acquisition of knowledge and interpreted knowledge itself in a singularly narrow & illiberal sense. To give knowledge is necessary,’ he further argued, ‘but it is still more necessary to build up in him the power of using his knowledge’ (359). He illustrated this point by saying that in order to be a good carpenter, the transmission of technical knowledge of felling a tree was not adequate unless it was complemented by the technical capability of preparing tables, chairs and cabinets. In other words, a carpenter was required to be able to apply his acquired knowledge to demonstrate his/her expertise in the crafts. This was not the case in India, which was a source of irritation to Aurobindo who thus criticised English education by underlining that the prevalent education ‘trains the memory and provides the student with a store of facts & secondhand ideas’. As a result, the learners had neither the opportunity to be good carpenters nor good teachers capable of transmitting the techniques of transforming wood into furniture. The implication was disastrous, apprehended Aurobindo, because, given the lack of capability, once they joined the professions, they were always treated with disdain and, as a result, they hardly rose to the top which was the exclusive domain of the Europeans. It was difficult to reverse the system since it was tuned to the protection of colonial interests. Although he was disappointed,

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he also expressed that true knowledge was available in England which led him to suggest that one was able to acquire ‘appropriate knowledge if one had the opportunity to go to England’ (359). There was, of course, a constraint which was the outcome of being raised in a colonial country. Aurobindo thus lamented that ‘even one succeeds in reaching England, he seldom succeeds because his lungs are too debilitated to take in a good long breadth of that atmosphere’ (359). So, the scene did not appear to be favourably disposed to the Indians by virtue of being colonial subjects. Thus, with the introduction of Macaulay’s Minutes in 1835, there was hardly a chance to creatively articulate oneself by demonstrating one’s capability with regard to any profession. Aurobindo addressed the constraints by referring to three areas of concern which, he thought, were of use in reversing the mode of educating the young minds: (a) the power of reasoning, (b) the power of comparison and (c) the power of expression. As per him, it was a deliberate ploy on the part of the rulers to create a milieu in which these concerns remained peripheral. This was justified by the Loyalists who felt that once the knowledge was acquired, one’s mind was well equipped to take care of human needs. It did not seem unusual since colonialism continued in India for almost two centuries primarily because English education provided great support to its sustenance. Not only did it produce committed Loyalists but it remained effective in view of the Nationalist failure to develop an alternative mode of education to take care of the emotional and professional needs of the country. It was easier said than done since the colonial rulers were also well equipped to scuttle the endeavour as soon as it was attempted. As a result, the Nationalist education system never received the support it expected. Nonetheless, being committed to the Nationalist cause, Aurobindo, in many of his writings, exposed the weakness of English education which was futile in so far as India’s well-being was concerned since the easy assumption … that we have only to supply the mind with a smattering fact in each department of knowledge & the mind can be trusted to develop itself and take its own suitable road is contrary to science, contrary to human experience and contrary to the universal opinion of civilized countries. (360)

Reminding the readers of the consequences of rote learning, he highlighted the need for creative knowledge which was, he was aware, not possible under the present circumstances. Nevertheless, his effort was directed to suggest ways and means for carving a new narrative of education which was tuned to the national needs. Besides this obvious limitation, Aurobindo also persuasively argued on the obvious weaknesses of English education by highlighting that it was not

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organically linked with reality. Convinced that the British system was meant to purge the Indians of their creativity, he thus suggested that the system gave nothing to the learners while keeping them confined for hours within the four walls of classrooms. It was mentioned categorically when he stated that ‘while we insist on passing our students through a rigid & cast-iron course of knowledge in everything, we give them real knowledge in nothing’ (361). Illustrative here was his contention that a graduate with specialisation in English literature failed to comprehend the Indian reality since ‘he is trained in literature by reading the literary texts of famous English writers, [who while codifying their creative thinking] were invariably influenced by their own context which was clearly foreign to the Indian students’. Fundamental here is the point that the course curricula were not designed to provoke learners to view realities differently. What was worse, Aurobindo pointed out, was that the graduate passed with distinction, not by internalising the ideas of the great maestro but simply by memorising them for doing well in the examination. Such a system contributed to rote learning. The scene was appalling; education was reduced to an instrument for fulfilling narrow goals. Aurobindo’s critique was useful to understand his unique ideas of education which were also manifested in the designs that Rabindranath Tagore and Gandhi devised later. Basic in Aurobindo’s effort are three critical points which merit attention to conceptualise the Nationalist effort at creating an alternative system of education. First, he raised a familiar point, that is, English education was anything but useful in generating an urge for emancipation because it succeeded in inculcating a sense of loyalty among the Indians. So, what emerged as an exclusive colonial design became an acceptable system to the Indians at large as it was a passport for jobs and other facilities in colonial India. In other words, English education, by being organically linked with the Indian mindset, created a set of indigenous Loyalists who not only defended the system but also contributed to its sustenance in opposition to the Nationalists. Second, by exposing the weaknesses of the prevalent system of imparting learning by the rulers, he also espoused the need for national education which was meant to associate learners with the nation. As English education was guided by narrow objectives, under no circumstances was it useful for the countrymen. Apart from learning English as a language, the system was irrelevant from the point of view of learning and pedagogy. On the basis of his experience as a teacher in Baroda, he also realised that English education was a conspiracy by the rulers to permanently cripple the Indians intellectually. Finally, being aware that English education was an effective tool to emotionally connect the Indians with the colonial authority, he, by seeking to devise

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an alternative system, also felt that national education was an effective means to alter the mindset on which English education rested. It was not an easy task. Nonetheless, he succeeded in conveying that education was as important as political mobilisation for the cause. His arguments for national education were very useful to understand that it was equally important for political emancipation which did not receive adequate attention from his predecessors. By putting forward his persuasive critique of English education, he thus developed a space for articulating his distinctive approach to education which the later Nationalists, especially with the appearance of Gandhi on the Indian political scene, paid adequate attention to this aspect of the Nationalist agenda. By being a vociferous supporter of national education, Aurobindo not only focused on a relatively neglected agenda in the Nationalist struggle but his powerful critique also created a space for an alternative discourse to strike roots.

The Model A creative thinker par excellence, Aurobindo organised his thoughts on education in a fashion which was easy to understand. Based on his unique understanding of the role of education in building a strong nation, he devised a model which privileged the importance of the brain in the entire process. By brain, he meant creative intelligence and the sustained pursuance of knowledge which also meant that one’s intelligence reached a different height provided one was always engaged in exercises that required the application of one’s intelligence. While elaborating his model, he focused on how Bengalis rose to prominence since they applied their brain to the extent it was possible to bring about radical socio-economic and politico-cultural changes. Bengalis, by being naturally gifted with brain power, made an impact in society through their efforts since they have ‘the emotion and imagination which is open to great inspirations, the mighty heart-stirring ideas that move humanity when a great step forward has to be taken. [It was possible because they have] the invaluable gift of thinking with the heart.’7 These were foundational ideas which Aurobindo espoused while creating his model of education. According to him, a combination of brain and heart was required to creatively think about humanity. By insisting on this, he also commented on the absence of these qualities among human beings in contemporary India. Implicit here was, in other words, his concern and also the possible solution to what he thought were hurdles. Here, he came out with ideas which later

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gained popularity although during the time he was active politicoideologically, they appeared impertinent or did not receive the attention they should have. It was very lucidly articulated by him when he mentioned that it [natural intelligence] is a faculty which now works irregularly in humanity, unrecognized and confused by the interference of the imagination and of the old associations or samskaras stored in the memory of the race of the individual. It cannot be made a recognized and habitual agent except by the discipline which the ancient sages formulated in the science of Yoga. (364)

Intrinsic here are three claims: first, Aurobindo paid adequate attention to samskaras which included what one learnt by being socialised in a particular way. The role of many agencies remained critical in this process: family, which was the first entry point to the rest of the world; places of formal and informal learning which might not have imparted the right mode of thinking, perhaps because of the colonial context—nonetheless, their contribution was immensely significant since they either helped reinforce the views inculcated in the family or challenged them by instilling contrary ideas; finally, the role of peers was also important in transmitting values and mores. Given all these sources, Aurobindo now argued that an individual was an outcome of complex processes and acted in accordance with the guidance of one’s brain power. Second, the importance of discipline was recognised as an important ingredient of one’s education. This was obvious since without being disciplined, one was unable to pursue one’s goals. By discipline, he meant those qualities which enabled a human being to carry out tasks in accordance with what was deemed to be appropriate to accomplish them. Finally, discipline remained elusive unless one trained one’s habit to follow a set of habits which one was able to generate in oneself only by yoga. This was an important dimension of Aurobindo’s wider concerns since even after he left active Nationalist politics, he continued to uphold yoga as a system for human betterment in all respects. In other words, yoga was not just a mode of practice helping human beings to remain physically fit; it was also a means to address one’s psychological and emotional imbalances if there were any. Being aware that his emphasis that Bengalis were endowed with brains was likely to alienate people from other parts of India, he thus added a note suggesting that the differences were due to the psychological texture of people from the rest of India. With the statement that ‘Bengalis have also serious deficiencies’ despite possessing the noticeable power of their brain, which he articulated by underlining the fact that

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‘a Bengali is inferior to other Indian races … in the capacity of calm, measured and comprehensive deliberation which is usually called intellect or reasoning power, and, which, though it is far from the whole thought, is essential to the completeness of thought and action’ (365). Notwithstanding being debatable, the above assumption is indicative of his perceptive thinking that he evolved by his penetrating capacity of observation. One of the reasons was his own experience of being involved in the Nationalist activities in Bengal. As is demonstrated by historical evidence, the campaign by the Nationalists was confined mainly to Calcutta and Bombay, along with some of the major cities in India, which means that it hardly had the Nationalist expanse that was witnessed with the arrival of Gandhi in the Nationalist scene. His colleagues, Lal-Bal-Pal, were also active in these areas which also restricted his vision to a significant extent; had he been around when Gandhi led the anti-British agitation, he would have had different views. Nonetheless, he remained consistent in his argument by reaffirming that the Bengali brain was required for revolutionary changes while other races were not properly equipped to undertake such activities in tune with exemplary metamorphosis. It was stated very unambiguously when he mentioned that by itself the logical or reasoning intellect creates the accurate and careful scholar, the sober critic, the rationalist and cautious politician, the conservative scientist, that great mass of human intelligence which makes slow and careful progress. It does not create the hero and the originator, the inspired prophet, the mighty builder, the maker of nations; it does not conquer nature and destiny, lay its hand on the future, command the world. The rest of India is largely dominated by this faculty and limited by it, therefore it lags behind while Bengal rushes forward. (366)

What is hinted at here is the idea that, unlike the rest of the Indians who tended to be cautious, Bengalis, by not being afraid of uncertainty, did not restrain themselves from taking risks for fulfilling their goal. Behind this assumption was perhaps his experience of being involved in the Revolutionary Nationalist campaign for emancipation. Impressed by the selfless sacrifice of the young Bengali, Aurobindo was persuaded to make such a comment which was not, at all, directed to denigrate one section in favour of another; but simply to highlight the qualities that one section of Indians possessed which the other sections lacked. With his nuanced understanding of human nature, he appreciated both types which further means that he struck a balance while assessing the qualities of many socio-culturally disparate communities of India.

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His comment was also an attempt to rejuvenate those who remained indifferent to risk-driven ventures which, according to him, were essential in taking humanity forward. He substantiated this claim when he stated that the rest of India has feared to deliver itself to the Power than came down from above to lift the nation; it either denied its call or made reservations and insisted on guiding it or reining it in. A few mighty men have stridden forward and carried their race or a part of it within them, but the whole race must be infused with this spirit before it can be fit for the work of the future. (366–367)

Here too, he admired the risk-taking individuals because, without their out-of-the-box thinking, it was impossible to break the mental shackle. And, Bengalis with their risk-taking mindset were ahead of the rest of India although he also warned that it was not enough since few, despite being totally dedicated, were unable to achieve the espoused goal. This comment appears to have been indicative of two important claims: on the one hand, his comment was directed to his Revolutionary Nationalist colleagues who continued to believe in hit-and-run tactics which were likely to be abortive vis-à-vis the Nationalist struggle unless it was complemented by the participation of the people at large; the other aspect of his comment is, on the other, reflective of his introspection of the Nationalist campaign with which he was associated; he realised, like Tagore and Gandhi, the zeal for the anti-British campaign was likely to be short-lived unless it was sustained by continuous endeavour by the Nationalists which was possible only with the expansion of the constituencies with the fervour for emancipation from the alien rule. Despite being part of the Revolutionary Nationalists, Aurobindo was one of those perceptive thinkers who foresaw the changing texture and also the nature of the Indian Nationalist campaign; or, in other words, his views helped us understand the gradual transformation of the anti-British counter-offensive which was confined to a minority during the first two decades of the campaign. Only with the rise of Gandhi as an undisputed Nationalist leader, did the character of the Nationalist movement undergo a sea change. In this respect, he was a game changer, unlike many of his Revolutionary Nationalist colleagues. Notwithstanding his appreciation of Revolutionary Nationalist methods, he was aware that for the anti-British struggle to succeed in a disparately textured India, what was required was to build a platform for all to join which became a reality once Gandhi appeared on India’s political scene. While articulating his views that so long as the Nationalist

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campaign remained confined to a few of the dedicated Nationalists, it would hardly attract the masses to participate in the struggle. Hence, ‘it is imperatively necessary’, argued Aurobindo, to create a centre of thought and knowledge which will revolutionize the brain of the nation to as great an extent as its character and outlook has been revolutionized. A new heart was necessary for our civilization, and, though the renovation is not complete, the work that has been done in that direction will ensure its own fulfilment. A new brain is also needed, and sufficiency of knowledge for the new to do its work with thoroughness. (367)

He now rounded up his argument by reemphasising the point that he made at the outset. There are three complementary ideas which merit attention here: first, by emphasising the importance of the brain, that is intelligence, Aurobindo put in place the critical role of education which was perhaps one of the most effective tools for inculcating a conducive mindset among the learners; second, he also believed that with complementary training by setting out an appropriate system of education, it was not difficult to accomplish the task. Being aware that unless the new system was zealously received by the learners, it was of no use, Aurobindo felt that supported his contention in favour of the change of heart. This was also a comment against those who happily accepted English education which was certainly a means for satisfying one’s own selfish interests at the cost of the rest of the nation. In other words, his argument for a change of heart is directed against those who helped sustain a foreign system of education and also against the system itself which he articulated most persuasively by devising ‘national education’ in collaboration with his like-minded colleagues. Finally, the above argument also shows a change in his perception in the sense that his concern was now national because he attributed the processes leading to the change of the mindset to the effort of the Indians at large; so, the role of Bengalis seemed to have been accepted as complementary to the Nationalist endeavour which was also indicative of changes in his perception of the campaign. There are inputs in the above argument to suggest that Aurobindo was in favour of creating a system of education in support of a system which would act as an effective instrument to spread the Nationalist concerns cutting across socio-cultural barriers. The text, ‘The Brain of India’, was thus not only an attempt at laying out a system of education appropriate for generating common concerns for the nation but also an articulation of thoughts that gradually became predominant in the Nationalist struggle with Gandhi as its chief priest.

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The Impediments and the Possible Ways Out In Aurobindo’s conceptualisation, education and nation-building were dialectically interconnected. The idea was touched upon by Moderate thinkers, especially, M.G. Ranade (1842–1901) and Dadabhai Naoroji (1825–1917) since they also held that an education equipped a nation to carve an independent narrative for itself. That colonial rulers would encourage English education to flourish was too obvious to merit elaboration. Hence, what was required was to develop a system of education with organic roots in India’s socio-economic and politicocultural milieu. It was Aurobindo who developed these conceptual points to evolve a distinct model of education which was not only contrary to English education but also aimed at imparting learning which was meaningful in the Nationalist context. Besides creating a servile set of learners, English education was deficient on many counts, as Aurobindo felt. First, one of the serious complaints against the existent mode of education was that it, instead of provoking students to be inquisitive, made the learners uncritically accept rote learning. Being burdened with studying many books in order to cover many areas of knowledge, the learners were always tied up with books with nearly no time to explore other areas of human interests. In consequence, they became mechanically trained individuals who lacked capacities to be innovative in their approach to humanity. In other words, English education was thus reduced to an instrument to fulfil Macaulay’s objective of making Indians ‘English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect [which also made them] … fit vehicles for conveying what the rulers expect from the ruled’.8 The system was thus favourably disposed towards the British rule at the cost of the learners who ended up being machines prepared and utilised with an objective of serving the authority better. Being critical of the system, Aurobindo thus argued that English education was neither a system of imparting knowledge for human well-being nor prepared the learners to address the issues confronting the Indians at large although they were very useful to execute the policies which were of benefit to the colonisers. Hence, it was not an exaggeration to characterise them as ‘stooges of the rulers’.9 Not only was it an unfair design, but also was adequate to destroy the creative faculties of the learners. ‘The Indian brain is [thus, argued Aurobindo] being damaged, stunted and defaced [and, as a result] … the greatness of its innate possibilities is hidden by the greatness of its surface deterioration.’10 His argument was substantiated further by underlining even the medium of instruction, English, which, by virtue of being foreign to the Indian learners, drew them to rote learning. According to him, ‘a foreign language was a deterrent [since] … the

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learners were forced to study many subjects when they were not fully equipped to understand [what was conveyed] in a language [which they never had the occasion] to learn’ (377). As the prevalent system was inadequate to provide learning in its real meaning, Aurobindo suggested that the first step that was required to be taken was to impart learning ‘in one’s mother tongue restoring the use of the disused intellectual functions and also for providing for a richer and more real equipment of information, of the substance of knowledge and the material for creation’ (378). It was not an easy task ‘partly because it had to deal with minds already vitiated by [English education] … and also because of teachers who clung to familiar shibboleths and disastrous delusions’ (378). Upset with the course curricula which did not include topics on India’s knowledge system, he further argued that it was a deliberate design of the rulers to completely ‘dissociate young minds from the great achievement of our forefathers especially in the perfection of the instrument of knowledge’ (378). This, however, did not mean a clamour for going back to the days of the ancient past which was an equally devastating design, warned Aurobindo, because the design itself was not ‘suited to modern requirements’. Hence, his object was to evolve disciplines of study emphasising a creative blending of useful ideas and views derived from the past and present intellectual discourses which were of help in comprehending the needs of contemporary India. Implicit here are two core points: on the one hand, Aurobindo was not xenophobic in his approach to education; in fact, he was in favour of including many of the Western discourses so long as they helped the learners to meaningfully grasp issues and problems confronting humanity at large; at the same time, he was aware that rootedness in one’s socio-cultural and politico-economic environment was equally necessary for the evolution and consolidation of creative thinking among the learners. Along with his fierce critique of English education, he was also disenchanted with the so-called national education which many of his Revolutionary Nationalist colleagues, including Lajpat Rai and Bal Gangadhar Tilak, supported. According to him, it was equally defective for many reasons: prominent among them was to exclude nearly completely the Western discourses since they were supportive of colonialism. As a counter to this effort, he argued that as these discourses contained ideas to serve humanity better, this was not an appropriate design of education. By claiming that national education was ‘truly national’, the enthusiasts actually narrowed down the scope of the system by making it exclusive which was dangerous in the sense that it was likely to be appropriated by the conservatives who always felt that old was good. By questioning them, Aurobindo was not in

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favour of discarding the ideas that came from the ancient Indian texts, namely the Vedas and Upanishads, he was arguing for an innovative amalgamation of ideas from the Indian past and also those from European thinkers which equipped the present generation of Indians to conceptualise the contemporary issues and problems. The other deficient feature of national education was highlighted by Aurobindo when he mentioned that ‘the new education … increased the amount of information a student was required to absorb without strengthening the body and brain sufficiently to grapple with the increased mass of intellectual toil’.11 By reiterating the view that the brain also required nourishment to process information, he insisted on the quality of health of the learners; otherwise, the entire exercise of introducing them to a new system of education boomeranged. In order to strengthen his argument further, he also stated that it was foolish to believe that the mere inclusion of the matter of Indian thought and culture in the field of knowledge does not make a system of education Indian [as it was] … another way of reproducing the European system of education which drew on Western ideas while ignoring the indigenous sources of knowledge.12

Fiercely critical of his compatriots, he thus introduced a new mode of thinking which was neither exclusively Western nor entirely Indian, but an amalgamation of both; it was justified by him by highlighting that what was good for humanity as a whole was required to be taught to develop a mindset sensitive to human needs. Hence, he strongly argued the claim that ‘in order to be national, education must reproduce the features of the old tol system [focusing exclusively on the study of a select set of texts according to teachers’ priority] of Bengal’ (368). Contrary to this widely accepted vision of many of his cohorts in the Revolutionary Nationalist mode of thinking, he also emphatically argued that he was opposed to revivalism, but was in favour of building a strong India by drawing on those sources of knowledge which were useful to attain the goal. It was well stated in his defence when he said that it is not eighteenth century India, the India which by its moral and intellectual deficiencies gave itself into the keeping of foreigners, that we have to revive, but the spirit, ideals and methods of the ancient and mightier India in a yet more effective form and with a more modern organization. (368–369)

Illustrative here is Aurobindo’s balanced assessment of the contribution of India’s ancient wisdom to the rise of India as a modern state. Being aware that it was foolish of him if he drew on what India had in the

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past, he thus evolved his approach by drawing on the spirit, ideals and methods of ancient India since it was reflective of the claim that India was a source of wisdom in the past. What it meant was the recognition of the heritage which acted also as a determinant of one’s zeal in contemporary India. It also had a political implication in a context when concerted attempts were made by the rulers and their patrons to undermine the foundational values on which ancient India rested. It was also an endeavour towards establishing the claim that the British takeover was a temporary affair since India had the inner strength to finally defeat the evil forces. So, Aurobindo’s approach was both strategically governed and politico-ideologically innovative in the sense that it was not an outright rejection of the system of education which was rooted in the Western discourses and also not an abject surrender to India’s ancient legacies. Most creatively designed, Aurobindo thus developed a counter-voice which did not exactly conform to the imposed system of education nor was uncritically supportive of what was derivative of the ancient Indian texts, the Vedas and Upanishads. Along with the endorsement of ideas drawn on both Western and indigenous discourses, Aurobindo was also a vocal supporter of the principle of Brahmacharya which, he felt, helped the Aryans build a durable civilisation in India’s ancient past. Since Brahmacharya provided the necessary foundation for the mind to be strong and innovative, he firmly believed that it was one of the most important sources of strength of the Aryan thinkers. By arguing that a weak foundation never allowed learners to fruitfully understand and internalise the ideas they received, he critiqued the prevalent system of education that flourished in the wake of British rule and also emerged out of the enthusiastic concerns of his colleagues who were associated with the National Education movement in Bengal. Fundamental to his perception was the claim that access to information never amounted to the attainment of knowledge. Information was an aid to inputs which acquainted the learners with what was available at a particular juncture of history; but it was not knowledge which was linked with the inculcation of capabilities for ‘judgment, imagination, perception, reasoning, which build the edifice of thought and knowledge for the knower [who] must be … trained to bring fresh materials and use more skillfully those of which they are in possession’ (370). Basic here is the point that the core aim of education is not just the possession of information, but the generation of skills for human betterment. It appears that skill had a wider connotation in Aurobindo’s perception since he included the finer qualities in this expression. By virtue of being the custodian of skill, human beings also realised that they were not delinked from the wider world which also provided space to other living beings. This was a part of the Aryan

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wisdom, argued Aurobindo, since the Aryans always believed that ‘man was not separate from the universe, but only a homogenous part of it, as a wave is part of the ocean’ (370). The other significant part of this argument had a flavour of the Vedic style when he attributed the importance of prakriti (nature), maya (illusion) and shakti (power and authority). Like the Vedic sages, Aurobindo also held the view that living beings articulated their existence in a design characterised by the above features. They were sources of infinite energies [that] … pervades the world, pours itself into every name and form, and the clod, the plant, the insect, the animal and also human beings [which] … proves that … we are each of us a dynamo into which waves of energy have been generated and sorted, and are perpetually conserved, used up and replenished. (370)

This is one of the most perceptive arguments that he made while devising a unique design for imbibing knowledge in its true connotation. There are three complementary ways in which he conceptualised the design: first, knowledge should not be confused with information which could, at best be of use to know what was pertinent in one’s search for satisfying a specific area of one’s curiosity; second, with this conceptualisation, Aurobindo conceived of the role of knowledge in the development of skills for making human existence better and self-gratifying; finally, by insisting on the claim that prakriti, maya and shakti formed the nucleus of the activities of those sharing the universe, he appeared to have come closer to the Brahmo belief in the world being manifested in a format which was articulated not by the living beings but by forces which were felt by sense but not, at all, visible or identifiable. Linked with this innovative conceptualisation, Aurobindo put forward a second ingredient of sustaining and strengthening human capability. Critical here was the importance of energy which allowed living beings to attain goals as per their capabilities which also depended on how one utilised one’s intelligence; if one resorted to evil means to satisfy one’s needs, the success that one attained was temporary since nature measured human acts in a balanced way. This was an aberration. One may add here that Aurobindo became a moralist, and he thus argued accordingly. The argument may have substance if one fails to understand the kernel of his philosophical disposition. One who drew on prakriti, maya and shakti, the three critical values which were manifested in the activities of living beings, it does not seem justified to think that he superficially understood how they functioned in the universe. The contention is substantiated when he firmly argued that they contributed to energy and appeared differently in different phases of the history of the universe. Here, Aurobindo’s second principle is of paramount importance to argue that they were neither

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sacrosanct nor static but were always transformative. Hence, while laying out the second principle, Aurobindo emphatically emphasised that ‘the more we can increase and enrich the energy, the greater will be the potential range, power and activity of the functions of our mind and the consequent vigour of our intellectuality and the greatness of our achievement’ (371). There are twofold ideas: on the one hand, he emphasised the importance of energy as a phenomenon in enhancing capability in general; on the other, by underlining that energy was the source of improvement, he also stressed how it was useful to transform what was considered to be axiomatic in character, which meant that he was one of those creative thinkers who never believed that under any circumstances human thoughts could be chained. By putting this claim in perspective, Aurobindo also contended that ‘this was the principle on which the ancient Aryans based their education and one of the chief processes which is used for the increased storage of energy was Brahmacharya’ (371). The argument attributing Brahmacharya to completeness is conceptually persuasive and thus worth pursuing as a source of satisfying one’s curiosity. Whether it was a successful design in practice is not only debatable but also generates uncertainty. Illustrative here is Gandhi’s autobiographical account of how he failed to practise Brahmacharya despite having tried heart and soul. According to him, Brahmacharya represented an effort to bring ‘thought under complete control of the will [which meant] the control of mind’;13 it was almost impossible for human beings to practise since ‘the control of mind was more difficult to curb than the wind’ (194). Nonetheless, he was emphatic that ‘those who desire to observe brahmacharya with a view to realizing God need not despair, provided their faith in God is equal to their confidence in their own effort’ (194). Intrinsic here is the contention that Brahmacharya was a mode of strict discipline which was a stepping stone towards attaining one’s espoused objectives. While he himself endeavoured to become a Brahmachari, Aurobindo, by referring to the Aryan history, felt that it was one of the best tools for developing a successful system of education in colonial India. It is, therefore, logical to argue that both Aurobindo and Gandhi understood the effectiveness of Brahmacharya as a mode of existence, and yet, they applied the mechanism differently: Aurobindo was for his wider concern while Gandhi was inclined towards Brahmacharya for fulfilling his own exclusive goal.

The Critical Ingredients of Education A perceptive thinker, Aurobindo knew that no model of education succeeded unless it was useful to provoke young minds. The assumption had two serious implications: on the one hand, it was a comment which

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clearly suggested that an articulation of a model without reference to the contextual peculiarities was a futile task which further meant, on the other, that one needed to be alert to the intellectual impulses capable of generating interest in what was being taught. In order to accomplish the goal, he referred to and also discussed these ingredients in detail which shows that he was also a practitioner to the core. The discussion that follows now is directed to highlight the ingredients of an efficient system of education which was not only an alternative to English education but also a counter to the widely hyped national education based on the inputs of many of his Revolutionary Nationalist colleagues. Human Mind He began his discussion on the ingredients of education by emphasising its role in stimulating the human mind. The learners were required to be adequately induced to be drawn to the topics which the teachers dealt with while being engaged with the learners. What was emphasised was the critical role of those involved in pursuing the task, which Aurobindo captured by saying that ‘any system of education founded on theories of academic perfection, which ignores the instrument of study, is more likely to hamper and impair intellectual growth than to produce a perfect and perfectly-equipped mind’.14 Questioning the English education for being guided by partisan colonial interests, he exposed the obvious limitations of such a mode which failed to provoke the human mind but generated interest in cramming the topics that figured in the course curricula. Here, education became an instrument with no substance, especially since its main function was to inculcate curiosity in the learners’ minds. For the British rulers, it was expected that the system of education that evolved in the wake of colonial rule was certain to be guided as an instrument to further their control in India. Nonetheless, Aurobindo felt that it was also a duty of the Nationalists to evolve an appropriate model while challenging the prevalent English system as completely futile for the fulfilment of what was expected of education. By discouraging rote learning, he castigated the model as ‘disastrous on body, mind and character of the learners in India’ (383). What he thus prescribed was a system of national education which is ‘comprehensive and thorough, without the evils of strain and cramming [which] … can only be done by studying the instruments of knowledge and finding a system of teaching which shall be natural, easy and effective’ (383). There were two critical ingredients here, and both of them were attempts to locate instruments to awaken and rejuvenate the human mind. First, the role of the teachers, who were expected to transmit knowledge in a fashion which was easy to follow.

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Implicit here is the idea that teaching was not just a verbal reproduction of what a teacher gained by studying books, but the way in which that knowledge was transmitted was equally important. Aurobindo referred to the importance of the teachers’ pedagogical skill in conveying ideas in a format which attracted the learners to the topics being discussed in the class. Second, he also emphasised that unless the human mind was receptive to what was being taught in the class, the main purpose of education was defeated. It was evident when he mentioned that ‘it is only by strengthening and sharpening [the] human mind to its utmost capacity that it can be made effective for the increased work which modern conditions require’ (383). Only being seriously attentive to this task, he further argued that ‘the muscles of the mind must be thoroughly trained by simple and easy means; then, and not till then, great feats of intellectual strength can be required of them’ (383). How to create such a mind, Aurobindo asked. He responded to the query by jotting down three principles: first, as stated earlier, the most critical person happened to be the teacher who continuously provoked learners to think and sustain this habit. In order to put in place the qualities a teacher should have, he further mentioned that the teacher is not an instructor or taskmaster, he is a help and guide; his business is to suggest and not to impose; he does not actually train the pupil’s mind, he only shows him how to perfect his instruments of knowledge and helps and encourages him in the process; he does not impart knowledge, he shows [the learners] how to acquire knowledge for himself. (384)

This is probably one of the most extensive lists of tasks that a teacher is expected to perform. Underlying here is a fundamental idea that Aurobindo reiterated in many of his creative texts by emphasising that the teacher was a human agent to generate and maintain the students’ creative faculties. It was a critique of rote learning and also a design supportive of creativity. The second principle relates to the assessment of students by the teachers about their capacity to absorb when ideas were being elaborated in the classrooms. What is emphasised here is the constant engagement of teacher–student interactions in the classrooms and also shows that teachers need to be alert to the duties for which they were appointed. Implicit here was also a critique against ‘the wellentrenched parental idea of hammering the child into the shape desired by the parent or teacher … in a barbarous and ignorant superstition’. This was not only an impediment to the unfolding of a child’s natural inclination but was a most harmful design—seeking perhaps to satisfy what the parents failed to do in their role as learners. The learners

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should be left to themselves to decide what they enjoyed doing. Hence, Aurobindo further argued that ‘there can be no greater error than for the parent to arrange beforehand that his son shall develop particular qualities, capacities, ideas, virtues or be prepared for a prearranged career’ (384). Tragically, the practice is still prevalent and Aurobindo’s cautionary statement is transcendental in appeal. Ignoring the adverse impact on young minds, parents continue to impose what they want their kids to do. By critiquing forcefully such an unhealthy practice, Aurobindo further argued that to force the nature to abandon its own dharma is to do it permanent harm, mutilate its growth and deface its perfection; it is also a selfish tyranny over a human soul and a wound to the nation, which loses the benefit of the best that a man could have given it and is forced to accept instead something imperfect and artificial, second-rate, perfunctory and common. (384)

The idea that Aurobindo conveyed did not seem to be novel; psychologists have proved that if a child is forced to do what s/he does not want to pursue, the result will be disastrous since it was contrary to his/her natural inclination. Reiterating the well-established theories in this regard, Aurobindo’s aim was to restrain the parents from undertaking such a debilitating endeavour. Not only was the effort suicidal for the child but it was also harmful for the nation since it was likely to produce a set of reluctant individuals who were forced to pursue a career against their will. This was contrary to the chief aim of education which, according to Aurobindo, ‘should be to help the growing soul to draw out that in itself which is best and make it perfect for a noble use’ (384). Linked with this assumption was the third principle guiding Aurobindo’s approach to education. The principle is about the environment in which teachers perform their noble duties. Being aware that the ecosystem acted critically in shaping human minds, Aurobindo interpreted the phenomenon in a wider sense which included not only the physical environment but also the factors that made teachers willing participants in the processes of transmission of knowledge. What is emphasised here is the same point that Aurobindo referred to while recording his views opposing the imposition of career paths for learners by their teachers. A teacher should not be forced to work in areas which were a source of discomfort because it was adequate to make him/her indifferent to what s/he was assigned to do. Reverberating the conventional wisdom, Aurobindo thus underlined that ‘a free and natural growth is the condition of genuine development [and] if the environment was adversarial, … human souls become

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delinked with the environment [which] … was a source of emotional vacuum’ (385). Implicit here was Aurobindo’s critique of English education and also those who developed national education which was actually a repetition of the European model. It was an alien system of learning which Aurobindo detested since it was neither organic to the environment nor receptive to the input emerging out of the indigenous context. In order to defend the argument further, he added that it was axiomatic that ‘it is God’s arrangement for mankind that they should belong to a particular nation, age, society, that they should be children of the past, possessors of the present, creators of the future [because] … the past is our foundation, the present our material, the future our aim and summit’ (383). Apart from his persuasive critique of English education and also what evolved in the name of national education, intrinsic here was an elaborate view in support of an education which was useful for the nation. There are two powerful arguments that he articulated while being fiercely critical of the efforts seeking to put forward a mechanical mode of transmitting organically delinked ideas and views. On the one hand, he expressed his doubt that English education and the system of education that his Nationalist colleagues developed were harmful since they were impositions on the learners of a mode of learning which was neither organic to their emotional preferences nor was a device to understand the reality in which they were born and nurtured. The Mind and Its Powers The second important aspect of Aurobindo’s conceptualisation was a detailed exposition of how the mind functioned. As mentioned earlier, in his model, the human mind was the nucleus in the processes of transmission of knowledge. As a psychologist, he now probed into the nature of the functioning of the mind in accepting or rejecting what it received from outside, which meant that it was a determinant in also shaping the path that the human mind preferred to adopt out of many alternatives being made available at a particular juncture of national history. How did the human mind select or reject the inputs was the question that Aurobindo grappled with before he dealt with the powers of the mind. According to him, being endowed with four complementary features, the human mind acquired the capability of choosing or abdicating options: these four features were integral to the human mind regardless of the historical context; here, he perhaps drew on the core ideas of human psychology, highlighting the characteristic features of the human mind per se. The first feature is ‘the chitta or storehouse of memory’15 which was most critical in the human mind

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since it provided yardsticks to judge what was right and what was wrong in light of the inputs that one’s chitta preserved. As Aurobindo always placed equal emphasis on all living creatures, he also pointed out that chitta was not the exclusive possession of human beings; it was there in all living beings in the universe. In fact, with the possession of memories, it was possible for all living objects to decide what was best at a particular point of their existence. This was God’s endowment which was evident in the fact that ‘the storehouse of memory or chitta needs no training, it is automatic and naturally sufficient to its task’ (386). It was, according to Aurobindo, ‘an admirable receptacle’ (386) which functioned perfectly as and when it was required. Explicit here is the argument that the internalisation of knowledge and chitta is dialectically connected in the sense that one is dependent on another. The second feature is manas or the mind proper, the sixth sense of Indian psychology. Manas is integrally associated with one of the critical functions of human beings because it was a tool ‘to translate into sight sound, smell, taste and touch by the five senses and translate these again into thought-sensations’ (386) which were ingredients for decisions or judgments. Hence, they were critical to the human mind as they supplied it with the materials on which preferences were made. How was this related to education? Aurobindo answered by insisting that it was the foremost duty of an educationist or a teacher to develop in the child the right use of the sixth senses, to see that they are not stunted or injured by disuse, but trained by the child himself under the teacher’s directions to that perfect accuracy and keen subtle sensitiveness of which they are capable.

Basic here was his concern for developing a set of well-equipped teachers who, instead of being merely instrumental in transmitting derivative ideas, enabled the learners to develop in themselves the skill of generating ideas and views by meaningfully applying their manas. The third feature is intellect or buddhi which was the ‘real instrument of thought and that which orders and disposes of the knowledge acquired by the other parts of human mind’ (387). This was drawn from the idea that buddhi was, perhaps, the most effective part of the human mind since it performed many functions at the same time. Implicit here is also the idea that the functions of chitta and manas were also guided by buddhi, which was the reason why it was considered to be of critical importance in how the human mind discharged its role in an efficient manner. In order to persuasively make his point, Aurobindo used a metaphor of ‘right and left hands’ responsible for performing two complementary sets of functions: as per him, ‘the faculties of the right

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hand are comprehensive, creative and synthetic; the faculties of the left hand critical and analytic’ (387). A careful analysis of this point suggests that Aurobindo was persuaded to believe that the human mind acted on the basis of a dialectical interconnection among those faculties which were critical in choosing or rejecting options by human beings, which meant that the human mind functioned in accordance with a formula, not always visible; but a thorough probing enabled one to understand its complex functioning. It was a novel approach because Aurobindo’s argument highlighted that mere transmission of derivative knowledge was not enough to build a nation of their choice. Further to this point, he also added that the right hand is the master of knowledge, the left hand its servant; the left hand touches only the body of knowledge, the right penetrates its soul; the left hand limits itself to ascertained truth, the right hand grasps that which is still elusive or unascertained. (387)

Here too, he emphasised the right coordination of all the features of the human mind for results tuned to the goal that human beings chose for themselves. Implicit here was also the Nationalist hope that once the right kind of education was in place, the Nationalist campaign acquired the momentum which was missing, presumably because of the success of the Macaulay-introduced English education in India. The task was not so easy to accomplish given the advantages that English education had. Nonetheless, Aurobindo and many of his colleagues were confident that once a proper alternative to the British-patronised system of education was put in place, their objective was certain to be attained. The final feature of Aurobindo’s model of education was to accord a space for the genius who held unique faculties which nobody matched. This was a rare phenomenon; nonetheless, one witnessed the appearance of genius individuals who radically altered the mode of prevalent thinking by their unique approach to issues and problems confronting humanity. Pragmatic to the core, Aurobindo also realised that those endowed with such unique and rare faculties were not readily accepted by their teachers, who by the fear of being exposed to his weaknesses before other learners generally discouraged them from the very beginning. It was a source of serious concern for Aurobindo and those who thought alike. Despite being undermined on many occasions, these individuals always carved a path for themselves on the basis of capabilities which equipped them to cross hurdles. For Aurobindo, it was nothing unusual since those with less capabilities were likely to deter these individuals by always discouraging them while ‘the liberal teachers welcome them [since] … they are aware that humanity could not have advanced

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to its present stage if it had not been for the help of these strikingly intellectually well-endowed individuals’ (388). The educationists were thus required to be trained to encourage children endowed with faculties [which were noticeable because] … it is foolish to neglect them [and] it is criminal to discourage them’ (388). Aurobindo dealt with this aspect by pitching his argument at two levels: at one level, he made a very obvious suggestion by reminding the educationists of their duties towards these learners with faculties of genius. At another level, he also emphasised that since this suggestion was likely to be conveniently ignored by those formally involved in teaching given their well-entrenched habit which he addressed by saying that ‘faculties so important to humanity should not be allowed to disappear due to lack of care and proper nurturing’ (388) for which he also devised a mechanism by constituting a core group of teachers who were naturally inclined to help them prosper by not only taking ample care but also by creating a milieu in which they did not feel threatened. Here, one notices the influence of the Bhagavad Gita which, according to him, also justified the distinction between good and the not-so-good. Arjun was advised of the war by his chariot driver, Krishna, as he was well endowed to fulfil the goal tuned to human betterment.16 Basic here is the argument that as Krishna understood that Arjun was well equipped to comprehend his ideas, he liberally gave them to him although the other Pandava brothers were equally close to him. Reiterating what Krishna did for Arjun since he was qualitatively a different individual, Aurobindo was also in favour of providing extra care for those with the faculties of genius. He also justified his argument that for humanity to thrive, those with these faculties needed to be encouraged, just like Krishna who favoured Arjun and not his brothers because he had the capabilities which others lacked for taking humanity to a different level. This further means that human beings are naturally divided: some with capabilities which others had and some with rare capabilities, and by believing that the latter was critical to humanity, Aurobindo added a new dimension to national education as being a replica of the European form of education hardly left adequate space for the genius to prosper and shine. The Moral Nature Morality constitutes a critical segment of Aurobindo’s politicoideological preferences. This is evident since he upheld morality as a quality that needed to be inculcated among the learners. Morality, here, denoted concern for others and reverence for the values and mores which were useful for sustaining humanity as a well-knit collectivity.

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There was a widely shared belief that if education was divorced from morality, it was injurious to human progress. And, yet there was not an easy formula for imparting morality among the learners. Hence, Aurobindo was critical of making learners moral and religious ‘by the teaching of moral and religious text books’17 which, he condemned as ‘a vanity and a delusion, precisely because the heart is not the mind and the mind does not necessarily improve the heart’ (389); furthermore, he questioned the imparting of moral learning by distributing written texts because ‘the danger of moral text-books is that they make the thinking of high things mechanical and artificial, and whatever is mechanical and artificial is inoperative for good’ (389). So, what was the way out? Aurobindo devised a scheme by highlighting the ingredients of morality which were (a) emotions, (b) samskara or formed habits and swabhava or nature; they were partly instinctive and partly acquired, which suggested that the inherent qualities of the individuals needed to be nurtured in order to make them morally tuned to the duties as who they were. In Aurobindo’s articulation, ‘the only way to train oneself morally is to habituate himself to the right emotions, the noblest companionship, the best mental, emotional and physical habits and the following out in right action of the fundamental impulses of [one’s] essential nature’ (389). The above argument is simultaneously a critique of the Western way of training the human mind by drawing their attention to the written tracts on Christianity and also an endeavour to create an alternative mode of generating morality. As he believed, the first mode was mechanical and unlikely to generate qualities conducive to the growth of morality. In order to exemplify his point, he referred to a situation when a child was forced to follow certain practices which s/he did not like which meant that if it was due to the application of force, a certain type of behaviour evolved. This was not going to last because, as Aurobindo argued, ‘unless you can get the child’s heart and nature on your side, the conformity to the imposed rule becomes a hypocritical and heartless, a conventional, often a cowardly compliance’ (389). In other words, the yoke of discipline was always fragile, as history illustrates. This led him to further argue that since English education was forcibly imposed on the Indian learners, the impression that it struck organic roots in the Indian mindset was not only concocted but also overstretched. Implied here is the argument that morality cannot be imposed by employing force; it has to come instinctively on the basis of the qualities mentioned earlier, which are partly inherited and partly inculcated. The processes of generating moral concerns for others do not evolve automatically; what is required is to create a milieu in which the ideas that one finds

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in the book are executed by the teachers in practice. Here, Gandhi’s suggestion that deeds and not words are the best teachers captures the sense that Aurobindo articulated in his defence of education as a vehicle for transmitting morality from one generation to another. Instead of sententious sermonising, what was most effective, argued Aurobindo, was to lead one’s life by strictly adhering to the principles and values connected with morality. In other words, a teacher easily expressed what he meant by morality by placing before his/her pupils those practices which epitomised morality. Being aware that colonialism was a bad influence on the young learners who tended to be indifferent to morality that was considered appropriate to the Indian context, Aurobindo suggested that instead of outright rejecting them, the Nationalists had the responsibility of making them believe that they were affected by ‘curable diseases’ (391) as their habits or samskara were polluted by their acceptance of the values related to colonialism. As he further argued, the learner who uncritically imbibed the imposed cultural values should be encouraged to think of them, not as sins or offences, but as symptoms of a curable disease alterable by a steady and sustained effort of the will – falsehood being rejected whenever it rises into the mind and replaced by truth, fear by courage, selfishness by sacrifice and renunciation, malice by love. (391)

The above is perhaps the most succinct description of how to generate and sustain morality in adverse circumstances. Besides being confident that neither religion nor imposed values were adequate for generating morality, Aurobindo reiterated the Upanishadic dictum vasudhaiva kudumbakam (the world is family), which he translated as concern for humanity as a whole because it was perhaps the most effective mode of inculcating a sense of being sensitive to others’ needs and requirements. This was also a reiteration of the Vedic idea that we lived for others which again meant that as human beings we were all one, and since this was so we were required to adopt practices which were not self-centric but driven by the concerns for others. So, morality was not elusive or textbook-based, but one that could be instilled in human beings provided a conducive environment was created and nurtured. Implicit here is also the claim that since morality is an outcome of conscious efforts towards privileging concerns for humanity at large, the argument that it is required to be safeguarded against attacks does not seem to be overstretched, but is plausible to explain why, under certain circumstances, situational impulses become critical for its sustenance or otherwise.

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Simultaneous and Successive Teaching English education was an incomplete training of mind which did not seem unexpected as it was structured to safeguard the colonial interests. The Nationalists’ design of national education was also not free from deficiencies since it introduced the practice of teaching by snippets. It was obvious that Macaulay’s suggested mode of transmission of knowledge was not appropriate for fulfilling the purpose for which education was designed; it was purposive from the point of the rulers. What disturbed Aurobindo was the inherent failure of national education because the design of course curricula was equally restrictive. As per Aurobindo, it was neither national nor directed to prepare young minds to understand the contemporary socio-economic and politico-cultural realities for two reasons: first, by privileging teaching of many disciplines simultaneously, the system did not allow the learners to be masters of any because ‘teaching by snippets was not a good pedagogical means of learning’. Second, the result of such pedagogical practices was disastrous because it served the learners with ‘an imperfect parcel of knowledge’ which contributed to the creation of a set of learners who became a jack of all trades but the master of none.18 In order to substantiate his claim, he referred to the old system which, instead of teaching many disciplines, focused on one or two disciplines, and shifted to other disciplines once they were intensively dealt with which made the learners confident and capable of pursuing further studies on what was taught. One might raise one’s concern by saying that intensive teaching of specific disciplines was equally bad as this did not allow students to study the discipline which they liked. In response, Aurobindo admitted that it was so and in order to address this, he was in favour of giving the option to the students of taking up courses in disciplines once they were equipped intellectually after having had the foundational knowledge of the disciplines which were appropriate for this. It was true that the old system ‘did not impart so much varied information, [but] it built up a deeper understanding of a discipline they were taught’ (393). Condemning the modern system of education as ‘shallow, light and fickle’ (393), he also strongly argued against its continuity by saying that the sooner this was withdrawn, the better it was for the future of Indian learners. What was the option that he insisted upon? Aurobindo knew that it was almost impossible to bring back the old system since, in view of the changing politicocultural milieu, the method might not work perfectly; the new system emphasising teaching by snippets was also not adequate. Hence, instead of binding oneself to either the modern or old system, he proposed to create an appropriate system of teaching which was ‘the most perfect

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and rapid means of mastering knowledge’ (393). Being critical of the British design of linking education with jobs, he understood that the context was not propitious for the system he had in mind. Nonetheless, he put across the point that processes of simultaneous and successive teaching were perhaps the most efficient mode of teaching to the learners; otherwise, it would become mechanical and learners would become experts in disciplines which had no connection with the realities as the system evolved to serve an alien government. By imitating the colonial mode, the national education was hardly different except that the learners there had an opportunity to be acquainted with snippets of India’s history, geography and culture. Besides exposing the limitations of the prevalent pedagogical forms, Aurobindo was also insistent on teaching in one’s own mother tongue since it helped the learners learn the topics easily. Instead, the prevalent modes of education preferred English which was foreign to the students; it was a bad choice since the child needed time to master a foreign language before s/he was equipped to understand the class teaching which was carried out in English. By devoting disproportionate time to mastering a foreign medium of instruction, the learners lost precious time in their lives which could easily have been utilised in properly understanding what s/he preferred to study. This was a conspiracy to weaken the nation. Aurobindo thus urged his colleagues to devise an alternative system of education which allowed the child to be imaginative and free to pursue his/her areas of interest. His ideas were meant to provide an education system which was productive from the point of view of the learners and was a fierce critique of the prevalent systems. It was most clearly articulated when he mentioned that instead of stupid and dry spelling and reading books, looked on as dreary and ungrateful task, he should be introduced by rapidly progressive stages to the most interesting parts of his own literature and the life around him and behind him, and they should be put before him in such a way as to attract and appeal to the qualities which were useful for him to shoulder the responsibilities that he was expected to discharge for nation building. (394–395)

The mode of conceptualising education by Aurobindo appears to be impractical since given the hegemonic presence of the British Raj, the replacement of English education was next to being impossible. The national education was not a proper substitute since it was just an imitation of English education in pedagogy and also the format of course curricula. There is substance in this critique; what is striking in Aurobindo’s critique of the available modes of teaching is an attempt to provide an alternative which he thought was useful for cultivating

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knowledge and preparing the learners for the duties that they were expected to perform once they were ready. In this sense, although his model was a mere conceptualisation of what ought to be pursued, it had inputs which acted decisively in shaping many alternative ways of conceptualising education by the Nationalists, including Rabindranath Tagore and Gandhi. What was critical in his design was to evolve pedagogical practices to interest the child in life, work and knowledge, to develop his instruments of knowledge with utmost thoroughness, to give him mastery of the medium he must use. Afterwards, the rapidity with which he will learn will make up for any delay in taking up regular studies, and it will be found that, where now he learns a few things badly, then he will learn many things thoroughly well. (395–396)

Articulated here are the distinctive features of Aurobindo’s philosophy of education which should be an instrument to draw the best out of learners. As argued above, he was aware that the model, despite being appropriate, was not going to take off in view of the British rule. Nonetheless, by dwelling on the obvious deficiencies, he offered many useful insights to enable us to build an alternative system of education which was both appropriate to the Indian minds and also prepared the young learners for the task they were expected to dwell on. Improvement of Mental Faculties Aurobindo strongly felt that for efficient learning, one was required to develop one’s mental faculties for absorbing what was conveyed in the classrooms. There are four components that he referred to while delving into this aspect of the system he proposed. First, a teacher was expected to nurture a student by taking adequate care of his/her six senses: sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste and mind. Of these, the mind was entrusted with the task of gathering information through physical nerves and their end-organs, eye, ear, nose, skin and palate. If these senses were perfect, a child would have no difficulty in internalising and processing inputs that they gather. A teacher was responsible for ascertaining that the learners were able to utilise the senses to draw conclusions; in case they were deficient, it was the duty of the teachers to address them as immediately as possible. What Aurobindo thus wanted was to create a corps of teachers who always remained committed to their students not merely as teachers but also as fellow travellers. Once they happily accepted their role as mentioned above, it was easier for them to link the manas (mind) of the learners with their buddhi (intelligence) which meant that in comprehending the surrounding realities, the role of the

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teachers was most decisive and critical. What he probably had in mind was that teaching was not just a profession to earn a livelihood but a vocation to successfully pursue objective-driven thought processes. He also talked about the dialectical interconnection between chitta (memory) and samskara (habits) which, he felt, was also of great significance in training the human mind. Without chitta being properly equipped, buddhi (intellect) was unable to execute what was appropriate at a particular point in time. Hence, it was not possible for the mind to discriminate, choose, select and arrange the design for realising the goal. Here too, Aurobindo insisted on regular engagement between teachers and the taught as perhaps the most effective means of ascertaining the interconnection. The second aspect of the argument relates to the devices for sense improvement. Being aware that senses might not be as effective as they were expected to be due to inadequate use, Aurobindo devised a design in which the learner’s attention and its span received maximum attention for this was the most effective means for utilising human senses to their utmost capacities. As Aurobindo rightly pointed out, attention was the first condition of memory (chitta) and accuracy. The span of attention was also indicative of whether the child was interested in the pursuits s/he was engaged in. It, however, depended on whether the object of attention was worthwhile from the point of view of the learners. It was also a part of the critique that Aurobindo developed against the prevalent modes of teaching which hardly allowed the students to focus on objects that attracted them. While doing so, he also stated that improvement of senses did not mean mere concentration, but referred to the learners’ abilities to explain the objects in accordance with how they conceived them. Here lies a fundamental message since it is possible for the learners to be attentive to many objects at the same time. For instance, if there was a thunderstorm, many of its constituents, wind, rain, lightning and their impact on those watching, receive attention. Under these circumstances, attention to many objects is illustrative of how effectively senses function. The third part of the argument is linked with the training of mental faculties. Here, Aurobindo focused on how to improve one’s capacity for observation which was important in choosing the right means for accomplishing the goal. As observation was linked with the efficient functioning of the six senses, it was important that the teachers were engaged in activities associated with the making of observations. Here attention was of prime importance. Aurobindo referred to the example of a flower to illustrate his point. According to him, a flower was an object that was explained differently since observation of those seeing the object differed from one another simply because their senses worked differently. An admirer saw the flower as an object of beauty; for a botanist, its texture provoked

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interest and the flower was defined accordingly; a poet, having seen the beauty of the flower, articulated his/her thoughts in accordance with those priorities which remained elusive to others. So, on the one hand, it showed that attention was an important criterion in explanation and the nature of the explanation differed, on the other hand, due to the differing perceptions which were linked to how the flower was conceptualised by those who saw it as an object. As per Aurobindo, the difference of perception was illustrative of how one’s mental faculties helped one articulate one’s distinctive mode of explanation. Similarly, in the generation and dissemination of knowledge, the role of one’s mental faculties was of immense significance. By emphasising the training of mental faculties, Aurobindo acted as a psychologist who was alert to the importance of nurturing mental capacities since they were of assistance in building an effective system of transmitting knowledge. Based on a dialectical interconnection between chitta and buddhi, the human mind was capable of distinguishing what was bad and what was not so. Based on an assessment of the alternatives, the mind chose what was appropriate at a particular point in time, which means that for the mind, there was a space for rearticulating phenomena differently since the situation in which to act changed continuously. It was not possible within a set format which led Aurobindo to draw our attention to the learners’ curiosity and interests which helped them chart out a course of action under specific circumstances. In short, what Aurobindo had in mind was the importance of the human mind in carving out a specific course of action at a particular point in time; it was a capacity that needed constant nurturing which also supported his emphasis on the role of teachers in sustaining and also improving one’s mental capacity. The final part of the argument is about the training of the logical faculty. Basic to his argument was the belief that human beings chose the right option only with reference to what they preferred in a particular context which denoted that one’s choice was hardly sacrosanct because the context in which a particular choice was made constantly evolved. By logical faculty, Aurobindo referred to the capacity of correct reasoning which was contingent on three factors: (a) the correctness of the facts or conclusions, (b) the completeness as well as the accuracy of the data, and (c) the elimination of other possible or impossible conclusions from the same facts. They were constituents of logical reasoning although there was no mechanism to ascertain that by being attentive to the above steps, one was capable of logically drawing the right conclusion. Aurobindo responded affirmatively since the fallibility of the logical reason is due partly to avoidable negligence and looseness in securing these conditions, partly to the difficulty of

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getting all facts correct, still more to the difficulty of getting all the facts complete, most of all, to the extreme difficulty of eliminating all possible conclusions except the one which happens to be right.19

This is the formula that Aurobindo devised to develop the capacity of logical reasoning. As was true of other instances, here too, he carved out an important role for the teachers who, by being emotionally close to the learners, were equipped to train them to sharpen their logical faculty or logical reasoning. This was a capacity of drawing inferences from the facts and also making a judgment by reference to the causeand-effect dialectics; then the learners should be led to find out the reasons for failure or success which was of help in choosing the right option in the future although it was not a perfect design given the fact that situation kept changing. Nonetheless, ‘in this way, the mind can be trained to reason as correctly as the fallibility of human logic allow, minimizing the chances of error’ (409). What is emphasised here are two complementary aspects of Aurobindo’s argument in favour of logical reasoning. Implicit here was also his concern for generating a zeal for accepting or rejecting based on reasoning which clearly shows that he was neither for endorsing derivative knowledge as axiomatic unless it passed the test of logic. Apart from critiquing the imposed system of education which was readily accepted by the colonised as appropriate, presumably because it was a passport for gainful appointments in government and other British offices. So, there was a logic for those who opted for this preference at a particular point in India’s colonial history. Those who opposed the prevalent system were also logical in their choice since they believed that it was a British ploy to finish the learners’ creative faculties; so, it was a conspiratorial design. Hence, their opposition was an outcome of a logical assessment of the consequences of a complete surrender of the ruled to the rulers. In both ways, the conclusions were logically drawn which further means that despite having endowed the learners with the capacity to judge issues logically, there was no logical reason to conclude that individuals’ logical faculties enabled them to draw identical conclusions all the time. It was not possible since one’s logical mind functioned in accordance with the stimuli one received from the environment in which one exercised one’s capacity for logical reasoning. Fundamental here is the claim that logical reasoning is also context-dependent. So, what was logical to one at a particular point in time might not be so in different circumstances. That did not seem to have bothered Aurobindo since the conclusion that one drew was based on the processes which were logically deduced. Once learners were equipped to exercise their capacity by being respectful to the processes, their logical faculties appeared to have been enriched,

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argued Aurobindo. There are two points that need attention to complete the narrative: as a pragmatist who saw radical changes in India’s political texture, he was, on the one hand, aware that logical reasoning was not absolute, but was relative to the circumstances; on the other, he was perhaps one of those early Nationalists before Gandhi became prominent in India’s anti-British assault, who realised that what was required for emancipation, besides the Nationalist attack on the British, was to put in place a corps of intelligent men and women also capable of exposing the illogical set of activities of the rulers in sustaining their hegemony merely by deploying coercive power against the colonised.

The Principal Objective National education was as important as self-government, argued Aurobindo. With the success of the Swadeshi Movement in revoking the first partition of Bengal, the Nationalists opposed to the Moderates also felt the need to develop an alternative mode of education which was Indian in character and spirit. The idea was to devise a design which was not ‘an extension or imitation of the system of the existing universities with its radically false principles, its vicious and mechanical methods, its dead-alive routine tradition and its narrow and sightless spirit’.20 What was thus required, argued Aurobindo, was to generate ‘a new spirit and new body born from the heart of the Nation and full of light and hope of its resurgence’ (412). One of the serious constraints was (a) mental servility to the colonial rulers and (b) subservience to the evil habits in support of well-entrenched socio-cultural prejudices erecting watertight boundaries on the basis of the accident of birth. For Aurobindo, the most effective counter to this was an appropriate system of learning which was potentially strong enough to create a mindset capable of meaningfully combatting them. Being aware of the difficulties in creating a perfect design of pedagogy by putting in place a system that was certain to work favourably in opposition to the well-entrenched English education for its obvious benefit, Aurobindo cautioned that without collective effort, the task remained elusive. There was an argument for resuscitating the old system of education being practised in Nalanda, Vikramshila and Taxshila, which put India on the global map as an educational hub; Aurobindo was not in its favour since he believed that the ancient forms of education gained momentum in a specific socio-economic and politico-cultural context, and accordingly, it was difficult, if not impossible, to bring back the system of the bygone years. In his perception,

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the system that may have happened to prevail at one time in India, however great it was or in consonance with our past civilization and culture … cannot thus be relevant now. Hence, the reversion would be a sterile and impossible effort hopelessly inadequate to the pressing demand of the present and far greater demands of our future. (418)

Imitation of a system was not Aurobindo’s preference. Following this belief, he was also opposed to the lifting of systems from other countries because (a) it evolved in a different socio-economic and politico-cultural context which was a serious impediment for the borrowed system to strike organic roots in India and (b) given the foreign roots, these systems remained as foreign as the English education. So, there was no easy way to put in place an appropriate system of education which conformed with the ‘Indian soul and need and temperament and culture that we are in quest of, not indeed something faithful merely to the past, but to the developing soul of India, to her future need, to the greatness of her coming self-creation, to her eternal spirit’ (419). Intrinsic here was his emphatic belief in conceptualising education in a modern prism. Hence, the adoption of a system which might have worked efficiently in India’s remote past was not endorsed by him because not only was it inadequate to our needs but was likely to create and consolidate a fissure between the moderns and those championing an archaic system. So, logically, the system was not fit to attain the goal that he and his colleagues had in mind. We must note here that instead of rejecting the ancient system outright, he forwarded a persuasive argument in his defence before he drew his conclusion in this regard. By following this argument, he also questioned the endeavour at bringing back the system of education that flourished during the reign of the Mughal emperor Akbar because it was also a self-defeating exercise since our goal, argued Aurobindo, was ‘to keep abreast with the march of truth and knowledge, fit ourselves for existence under actual circumstances, and our education must therefore be up to date in form and substance and modern in life and spirit’.21 So, the aim was to lay the foundation of a vibrant system of education which was organically linked with the socio-economic and psychological needs of the Indians. The logic was persuasive given the fact that English education prepared the learners for white-collar jobs which helped the colonisers govern the country efficiently since they succeeded in the creation of a corps of Loyalist officers who executed the policies made by their ultimate bosses. In these circumstances, Aurobindo undertook a task which was neither ‘a return to the fifth

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century but an initiation of the centuries to come, not a reversion but a break forward away from a present artificial falsity to her own greater innate potentialities that is demanded by the soul, by the Shakti [inner strength] of India’ (420). It was now clear that Aurobindo was guided by his urge to take India forward by seeking to establish a new system of education since it was essential for consolidating India’s intellectual foundation for the present and future. The difficulties were manifold in the colonial context; what appeared to be insurmountable were the hurdles linked with the appreciation by Indians of English education. The reason was not difficult to locate. English education was a passport to earning a livelihood to primarily routine jobs rather easily and also the support for those associated with the government in running the administration received from their immediate bosses in case they were faced with difficulties. Hence English education not only gained momentum but also expanded its appeal, cutting across class, caste and religious boundaries. So, Aurobindo had to fight many battles while displaying his Nationalistic model of education, the aim of which was ‘the building of the powers of the human mind and spirit … by evoking knowledge and the will and of the power to use knowledge, character, culture – that at least if no more’ (421). This is one side of the argument; the other side is manifested when he supported even the borrowing of ideas if they were of help in fulfilling the national objective. He, however, added a caveat by saying that blind emulation was bad, but adaptation of the derivative ideas to the native requirements was a useful mode for developing a completely different set of conceptually persuasive designs. Hence, he argued that mere emulation was undesirable, and in its place, he insisted that borrowing even from Europe ‘whatever new knowledge or just ideas [she] has to offer and to assimilate them to our own knowledge and culture, our own native temperament and spirit, mind and social genius, and out of that create the civilization of the future’ (422). While pursuing the aforementioned argument, he also challenged the view that human minds were uniform everywhere in character and spirit. As it was uniform, the ideas that acted decisively in a different context could easily be deployed to generate the same result. By questioning that this was an old and effete superstition of the reason [which was required to be renounced] for within the universal mind and soul of humanity is the mind and soul of the individual with its infinite variation, its commonness and its uniqueness, and between them there stands an intermediate power, the mind of a nation, the soul of a people. (422)

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So, the human mind was not uniformly textured; in its formation, several influences acted to accord the shape that it had at a particular juncture of human history. With his scientific bent of mind, Aurobindo defended the assumption as he believed that the human mind, being exposed to multiple influences, could hardly be moulded into one. For instance, by being colonised, the Indian mind expressed priorities which were at variance with what led to colonialism as an instrument of exploitation of the hapless people in the non-European world. Here came the role of education which was not ‘a machine-made fabric, but a true building or a living evocation of the powers of the mind and spirit of the human being’ (423). Even in adverse political circumstances, the task was relatively easier given the critical importance of purushartha in shaping individual preferences. By purushartha, he drew our attention to the human concerns for dharma (righteousness, moral values), artha (prosperity, economic values), kama (pleasure, love, psychological values) and moksha (liberation, self-realisation, spiritual values). Since Indians represented a creative blending of these characteristics as they were internalised by being born and raised in this land that drew its moral sustenance from these ideational priorities, the task did not appear to be as difficult as it seemed. They provided what Aurobindo characterised as the iron armour which masks and encumbers the national Purusha which is manifested in the articulation of a communal soul with distinct Swabhava [behaviour] and Swadharma [commitment to one’s duties] … and embody them in its intellectual, aesthetic, ethical, dynamic, social and political forms and culture. (426)

Integral to Aurobindo’s scheme for education was his concern for the spiritual uplift of the learners by being respectful of India’s wellentrenched socio-cultural heritage. As he believed, spiritualism was not a surrender to divinity but being committed to those values supportive of humanity. By emphasizing the point that one’s swabhava and swadharma needed to be taken into account to evolve an appropriate system of education, Aurobindo pursued two objectives: on the one hand, being attentive to the Indian intellectual legacies, he insisted on drawing on those values which cemented a bond among the socioculturally disparate Indians; there was also a concern, on the other, for the ideas rooted in different socio-economic and politico-cultural milieu provided they were of use for comprehending human issues with reference to the context in which they evolved. Aurobindo’s conceptualisation of spiritualism was not out-worldly but one that was derivative of India’s ideational peculiarities. The English education was

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bound to fail since it hardly took into account the spiritual health of the colonised; it was mechanical and thus lifeless which was manifested since it was linked with the fulfilment of material needs of the lucky ones who were employed by the colonial masters. As a result, the system, despite being an instrument for helping Indians to find gainful employment, hardly provided nourishment to the human mind. Hence, the model that Aurobindo articulated took into account the importance of the satisfaction of the human soul by saying that it must be an education that for the individual will make its one central object the growth of the soul and its powers and possibilities, for the nation will keep first in view the preservation, strengthening and enrichment of the nation-soul and its dharma and raise both into powers of the life and ascending mind and soul of humanity. And at no time will it lose sight of man’s highest object, the awakening and development of his spiritual being. (427)

It was unambiguously stated by Aurobindo that the goal of education was not to provide tools for satisfying the material needs of human beings but to make sure that they were spiritually enriched. His design was thus inclusive of objectives which did not normally receive attention. What might have influenced him was the failure of the Nationalists to come together, which was advantageous to the authority since a divided opposition was easy to contain. The lack of spiritual unity was a serious constraint, felt Aurobindo. Education was perhaps one of the most effective instruments in laying the foundation of spirituality at the outset of the beginning of one’s life. Once the urge was inculcated by transmitting the importance of the national soul which was integral to the individual soul, education would act as a perfect device to sustain the momentum. One must not identify him as being drawn to India’s past which he explicitly stated again and again while elaborating his model of education. In fact, what was admirable was his willingness to borrow the ideas from elsewhere, provided they were of help in fulfilling the objectives that the Nationalists aspired to attain. Furthermore, by linking education with the wider Nationalist goal, Aurobindo also reconceptualised its role as being critical to the battle for national liberation which gradually gained acceptance by his successors. It was therefore fair to argue that Aurobindo, by concentrating on education, not only provided valuable insights to the later Nationalists but also contributed to a differently textured approach to the Nationalist struggle which was not directed to attain political freedom by forcing the British to withdraw from India, but was also manifested in designs for spiritual enrichment as critical to the rise of India as a well-knit collectivity.

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This detailed discussion of Aurobindo’s alternative model of education shows that his activism was not just confined to his opposition to the alien government, but was an endeavour at developing a new mindset which was of help in sustaining India’s future. There are two levels at which he placed his argument: at one level, by devising a design of education, he exposed the limitations of English education and national education. On another level, he argued that education was one of the means of the spiritual well-being of those being trained in the system that he proposed. As argued earlier, his notion of spiritualism was a commitment to the human cause. It was a warning at the right moment since Aurobindo saw that the Nationalist campaign failed to attract youths to a significant extent, which meant that they were either disillusioned or were happy being colonised. Tagore in his novel, Ghare Baire (1916), dealt with this when the young Swadeshi activist, Amulaya, preferred to dissociate himself from the campaign as he was disenchanted with the leadership in view of the hiatus between what they said in public and what they did in private. It was a source of concern to Aurobindo which he explained in terms of the lack of emotional and spiritual commitment to the nation’s cause. Being convinced that the success of the Nationalist attack was linked with the consolidation of individuals inspired spiritually to sacrifice for human betterment, he appears to have been persuaded to develop a scheme of education to inculcate and also sustain spiritualism since it was a tool for cementing a bond among the socio-culturally disparate people. Not only was it a novel effort but that it was also meaningful and effective was evident when the successive Nationalist leaderships found in his model enough insights to draw upon while they undertook the task in the later years of India’s Nationalist campaign against the British.

Concluding Observations Education was an empowering device, realised Aurobindo while being involved in waging a relentless battle for India’s political freedom. Unlike his colleagues, who privileged freedom from British control, he was equally concerned with the eradication of socio-cultural prejudices which impeded the generation of fraternity among the Indians at large. Divided on many socio-cultural axes, it was difficult for the Nationalists to build a common political platform for all to come together for a common cause. The division not only became vicious during the Swadeshi Movement but it also became unbridgeable, especially between the two major communities, Hindus and Muslims. Aurobindo, despite being a vociferous supporter of political freedom, located the roots of

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the division in the lack of spiritual unity among those associated with the campaign for freedom. Having realised that one of the significant reasons was almost a complete neglect of the training of human souls, he focused on education which, felt Aurobindo, was a significant tool in inculcating spiritualism among the learners at the outset of their formal education in schools. It was not an easy task given the hegemonic grip of English education which was readily accepted as it provided those who passed out of the system with a source of income. With a view to creating an alternative, national education was conceptualised, which Aurobindo instantaneously discarded since it was just a replica of English education. For Aurobindo, national education and English education were two sides of the same coin. Being aware that the creativity of the human mind was critical to education, Aurobindo, unlike his compatriots in the Nationalist struggle, focused on its nourishment. His suggested ways were thus directed to make human minds innovative and perceptive because, he felt, only with these capabilities, the learners’ training was appropriate for the task they were meant to fulfil. In fact, in view of this, many akharas (training centres responsible for improving physical strength and mental agility) were formed across Bengal. As history shows, both the Anushilan Samiti and Jugantor developed akharas as training centres across Bengal. It was a re-articulation of gymnasium training that was followed in the Greek city-state, and Plato and Aristotle also underline the importance of good health as critical to good education. Although there is no reference to this aspect of training in ancient Greece, the format of the system of education which Aurobindo devised reminds us of what the Greek thinkers privileged for education. In another respect, Aurobindo’s mode of education was a break from the past in the sense that he also insisted on the learners being acquainted with India’s intellectual past. To be precise, he was in favour of introducing the learners to the wisdom on which the Vedas and Upanishads rested. Being aware that English education was a conspiracy to completely delink the Indian youths from their glorious intellectual past, he paid attention to the revival of learning in those fundamental texts which were not, at all, religious texts, as was the conventional perception, but tracts written to capture historical processes leading to the unfolding of human civilisation in phases. We must also add here that by doing so, Aurobindo followed the path that Rammohun and his followers set out. In other words, by insisting that the Vedas and Upanishads were significant in conceptualising contemporary India, Rammohun, and particularly his colleagues in the Brahmo Samaj, reinforced the ideas which did not receive adequate attention during colonial rule for obvious reasons. Those trained in English education

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were deliberately kept away from these heritage texts, which was a deterrent to the continuity of interests in the Vedas and Upanishads. So, Aurobindo’s aim was to regenerate curiosity in India’s intellectual heritage which, he felt, was necessary for the learners to be intellectually confident with the realisation that they had an equally creative past. A careful study of Aurobindo’s texts on education also reveals that his idea of nationalism was far wider than the conventional mode of conceptualising the nation. According to him, the simple removal of British rule was certainly an important aspect of India’s freedom, but not all, because without being free from socio-cultural prejudices, the claim for emancipation was hardly meaningful. Disheartened by the failure of the Swadeshi activists to include the Muslims and also the Untouchables in the campaign due to their arrogant commitment to caste and religious affiliations, he also strongly argued for developing a prejudice-free mindset which was possible only through an appropriate mode of learning. Hence, education was an effective tool for him. It is thus fair to argue that education, to Aurobindo, was not just a mode of transmission of specific sets of knowledge but also to generate impulses for a differently textured mindset appreciative of the Upanishadic ideal of vasudhaiva kudumbakam. The aim here was not to bring back the days of the past but to inculcate a feeling which was conducive to the growth of human society, immune from interpersonal hatred and rivalry. Aurobindo’s scheme of education shows that he was ahead of his age. Illustrative here are the systems of education that Rabindranath Tagore and Gandhi developed during their lifetime. Like Aurobindo, both of them emphasised inclusive education in the wider sense. By insisting that education should not be confined to specific groups of people, both of them created an ambience which did not allow sociocultural prejudices to act as a determinant in rejecting or accepting companions on the basis of segregationist criteria. It was also inclusive since the pedagogy they followed helped build bonhomie with the people belonging to different strata of society. It was thus not a strange design which Tagore put in place for interactive relationships between the students of his institution, Visva-Bharati, and the villages around the campus. Furthermore, by including physical exercise and meditation in the course curricula, they, similar to Aurobindo, felt the need for training of one’s body and mind. During the late 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century, Aurobindo can thus be said to have pioneered ideas which gradually gained momentum as they were not only appropriate but also meaningful in the building of a nation.

5 AUROBINDO A Spiritual Nationalist The Bhagavad Gita is an action-treatise. By morally justifying a war as ‘a just war’ since it was meant to establish an ethical code of conduct for humanity, it was also a set of sermons by the author at a particular juncture of imaginary history. Whether it was a historical tract or not is debatable because there was hardly persuasive evidence to defend the claim that it was so. Nonetheless, as a piece of creatively articulated ‘religious’ text, the Gita continues to remain a source of debate and discussion even today which also justifies the contention that it remains relevant as a mode of thinking in our intellectual discourses. The fact that the text helps raise pertinent questions in contemporary India suggests that it is different from other so-called religious texts both in terms of spirit and nature; in spirit, it contains those areas of intellectual search which remain provocative to those seeking to know the unknown; in nature, the dialogical format is also useful since it corresponds with the well-entrenched argumentative traditions that flourished in India since time immemorial. Critical here is the argument that the Gita is not just a text based on a dialogical interaction between two mythical figures but it also has features which are transcendental in terms of intellectual appeal to inquisitive minds. There are reasons to believe that the Bhagavad Gita is a challenging text. Because it provokes questions that help clarify many doubts even today, this ancient text is believed to be a source of wisdom. What is also striking is to note that the epic, Mahabharata, of which the Gita was integral, did not seem to have generated so much interest as the Gita, which requires to be probed to comprehend the reasons for its continuous viability as a tool to get into the world of knowledge. As is well known, it is based on the dialogue between a warrior and his mentor, Arjun and Krishna, who was also the chariot driver of and adviser to the former in a dharma yuddha (war for protecting dharma) that took place in Kurukshetra between two families of the same genealogical roots and their associates. The warrior, Arjuna, declined to fight since it also involved the killing of his relatives with which Krishna refused to agree. In Krishna’s perception, the Kurukshetra war was a righteous war given its aim of establishing a just rule which the opponents of Arjuna 227

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distorted for partisan gains. In other words, the war, despite the human costs, was necessary to re-establish morally justified governance which was a casualty at the hands of the prevalent ruler who, instead of being sensitive to the interests of the ruled, was wholeheartedly devoted to espousing unjust causes. The elaboration of the nature of the Gita reveals that it was a serious endeavour on the part of Krishna to prove that it was a just war and had to be fought as it was for a righteous cause. We do not know the counterarguments in this respect; hence, it is not known whether the Gita was just a moral fight against evil forces, or, if it was a normal battle for re-establishing the right of the deposed king and his bête noire. It is also possible that the Gita is just an elaboration of a dialogue supporting the decimation of an old civilisation for the proposed new. Arjuna and Krishna were thus representative of the rising forces against those wielding power and authority. By characterising the opponents as non-righteous, the author of this dialogical text expressed specific preferences while evolving the text in accordance with prevalent inputs being blended with his/her imagination. It was an outcome of specific processes of how the human mind worked under specific circumstances. The text is a set of sermons provided by Krishna to his disciple, Arjuna, who was reluctant to take part in a senseless battle leading to the killing of his relatives, friends and mentors. By seeking to persuade the hesitant Arjuna to take part in the apocalyptic war marking the passing of a dark age for an age of enlightenment, Krishna endeavoured to rouse Arjuna to action by preaching to him the doctrine of acting out of duty alone, without the desire for any particular result. In other words, Arjuna was duty-bound to participate in the war, even if that meant the decimation of his close kith and kin. To paraphrase the Gita, one should be respectful of one’s karma without expecting anything in return. If one follows one’s karma, as the argument goes, one is likely to benefit providentially since one remains devoted to what one is expected to do under the circumstances. The idea can be understood at two levels: at the level of common sense, it meant that the Gita insisted on duties being religiously performed by all without expecting gains in return. Implicit here is the idea of karma which is required to be discharged as sincerely as possible. At the conceptual level, the insistence on being sensitive to one’s karma, the claim is also meant to firmly establish the view that avoidance of karma is tantamount to that of one’s duty towards society. Apart from its religio-conceptual significance, the Gita was an important source of inspiration, especially with the rise of New Nationalism following the split between the Moderates and their opponents in the 1907 annual session of the National Congress held

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at Surat. As is highly publicised, the Moderates were enamoured by constitutional liberalism of the Western variety which led them to believe that India’s salvation was possible under the British tutelage. Challenging the Moderates’ intellectual and political servility, the New Nationalists propounded a new model of Nationalist struggle which included boycott and passive resistance as means to directly harm the British economic interests and administrative efficiencies. Given its popularity over centuries, the Gita became ‘part of the common sense of Indians whatever their religious affiliation’1 and it received a new lease of life during the colonial period when it was accepted by the dominant section of the Nationalists as one of the effective tools for political mobilisation against the imposed colonial authority. For many who are interested in Hinduism, the Gita is considered to be an authentic text of Hinduism in the sense that the reasons that Krishna put forward to persuade Arjuna to undertake activities against his will were based on ideas that were shown to be derived from the core texts of Hinduism. This is a debatable assumption for two fundamental reasons: on the one hand, the text never talked of Hinduism, even tangentially; it was a set of arguments to defend an idea by following Hegelian dialectics. On the other, this apocalyptic text was believed to be a watershed in civilisation as it, while announcing the downfall of a dark age and consolidation of an age of enlightenment, was a harbinger of a new era. The rise of a righteous era forms an important segment of all religious discourses: the idea of qayamat, or the day of judgment in Islam or the Biblical story of Noah’s Ark, articulates the regeneration of civilisation after the destruction of what existed then. The Gita is an Indian version of how a new civilisation, which was free from evil forces, emerged out of destruction. In other words, the Gita can be said to have articulated such a process in a dialogical fashion which was neither Hinduised nor sectarian from any conceptual point of view. It is also difficult to characterise the text as historical given the lack of solid evidence to back this assumption. However, there are reasons to believe that it was a tract written by an author or authors like the Upanishads which were believed to have been written by many in different phases of human history, as Rabindranath Tagore convincingly argued.2 Furthermore, these tracts were not accounts of heroic deeds of specific mortal beings nor did they talk about a particular phase of human history; they were elaborations of how knowledge emanated in human society out of keenly fought dialogical interactions among the participants. As no evidence is available to conclusively prove that the Gita was the articulation of an individual or individuals in a particular phase of history, it is judicious and conceptually tenable to suggest that it was not a monochromatic text but evolved out of a dialogue

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that took place between two imaginary figures. Hence, it is argued that ‘the very lack of historicity [of the Gita] made the text potent for the future’.3 The claim makes two conceptually significant points: on the one hand, it highlights the importance of the Gita as a transcendental text since, by justifying the battle against British atrocities, it allowed the Indian Nationalists to undertake means to combat the perpetrators of injustice; it was also a tract that created a milieu in which the issue of whether an act was just or unjust was to be resolved outside the domain of the state. A war creates an environment in which two groups with contrarian ideas fight for a cause. The battle is an arena which allows many to take part in an exercise to ascertain which of the groups fights for righteousness. So, the Gita is a conceptual reference to argue that the sense of changing power equations or power relationships governing human behaviour is not just a state-centric phenomenon, but one that evolves in any socio-economic and politico-cultural contexts involving human beings. With their acceptance of the Gita as the gospel of knowledge, the post-Moderate Nationalists devised a distinct domain in which human rights, justice and righteousness were conceptualised differently. The Gita was a doctrine of training a completely different mindset supportive of activities directed to fight till the end for the removal of an unjust system of governance at the behest of colonial authority. For the Nationalists, the Gita helped build a new mode of thinking which created an ambience with reference to distinct ideational priorities for the Nationalists who, by exposing the limitations of the erstwhile Moderate nationalism, designed paradigms by being drawn to the indigenous sources of wisdom. In these circumstances, it was not just the Gita, but Vedas and Vedantic texts that gained precedence in contrast to the earlier Moderate phase of Indian nationalism when the Western discourses prevailed. The Gita stands out as a conceptual text since it became one of the most widely discussed texts both during the New Nationalist phase of India’s recent political history and its aftermath when Gandhi reigned supreme; its importance as a pathfinder was felt cutting across ages and generations. Illustrative here is the fact that not only did the New Nationalists, Bal Gangadhar Tilak (1856–1920) and Aurobindo (1872–1950), write useful commentaries on the Gita but Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948), who also paid adequate attention in his text on the message of the Gita, did too. A cursory look at the text also underlines a significant conceptual underpinning, namely, it is a text which evolves ideas of great theoretical importance in terms of human action itself as critical to human enrichment which, by implication, hints at the nearly underplaying providential intervention. Human action is primary to the achievement of goals for human betterment. In other words, the Gita provides a scheme of thinking that privileges

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human activities as critical to transformative politics. The idea was not novel although it did not receive adequate attention, especially when Indian public intellectuals like Rammohun Roy, Vidyasagar and many of the prominent Brahmo Samaj leaders seemed to have meekly surrendered to the intellectual prowess of the Western scholars. They had, of course, reasons to follow this path at that juncture of India’s rise as part of a British colony; nonetheless, they also played a historical role by putting in the public domain the Western discourses which allowed the opponents to review and re-assess the Western ideas in their prisms. This rather long signposting segment of this chapter is very useful to situate the principal theme of the chapter, namely, the relevance and importance of Aurobindo’s views on the Gita which he articulated in many of his essays in Indu Prakash, Karmayogin and Bande Mataram between 1893 and 1910 when he left for the French colony, Pondicherry. In order to understand how he viewed the Gita, the chapter primarily focuses on his Essays on the Gita published in 1922. We must add a caveat here. Since this text was published after he dissociated himself from the Nationalist struggle and decided to lead an ascetic life in Pondicherry, away from British-controlled India, one may surmise that his essays were also based on his newly gained experiences of being aloof from the hurly-burly world of Nationalist politics. The charge is partly valid and partly not: on the surface, one may pursue this point as justified; a deep probing, however, reveals that it is not so since many of the ideas that he articulated in his Essays were rooted in his essays in the weeklies, mentioned earlier. Besides defending the argument that Aurobindo’s discourses on the Gita is a persuasive text, the chapter, by highlighting how he accomplished the task, is directed to show that karmayogi Aurobindo was drawn to the text because it helped him grasp the critical importance of human activities in transforming the surrounding environment. The chapter also concentrates on why Aurobindo privileged the Gita over other holy texts at a point in India’s Nationalist history when the Western discourses appeared to have had unquestionable acceptance by those who mattered in India. By undertaking this feat, namely, popularising alternative discourses drawn on indigenous sources, Aurobindo set the ball rolling which gained momentum in the course of time. The chapter thus argues that it was Aurobindo who, along with his New Nationalist compatriots, foresaw the consolidation of a mindset drawing inspiration from the indigenous sources of wisdom. For the New Nationalists, it was a grand opportunity, as the chapter underlines, to mobilise support for the Nationalist cause by being respectful to the discourses which were rooted in Indian civilisational ethos in contrast

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with the imposed mode of thinking based exclusively on the derivative Western discourses.

Importance of the Gita This was not just a matter of coincidence that Tilak, Gandhi and Aurobindo drew on Gandhi for pursuing a political cause, namely India’s independence. It can thus be safely surmised that they believed the Gita to be a likely source of inspiration to those fighting for national emancipation. While explaining why it became a source of inspiration, Aurobindo argued that all the traditional texts upholding India’s intellectual heritage laid out the path for realising truth. The Gita was not an exception. In his words, the Gita’s message was ‘of value to humanity and its future’4 which was primarily the reason why Aurobindo was attracted to this dialogical text which, while dwelling on duties and morality, among others, justified how it became a sustained source of strength to humanity. In order to defend his argument, Aurobindo put forward two points: first, the Gita was one of those discourses that concentrated on the revelation of truth which was one and eternal. Implicit here is the claim that the battle for India’s political salvation was guided by this motif, which was not, at all, relative to the circumstances, but remained the same regardless of the changing socio-political milieu. Second, he also highlighted the transcendental importance of truth which was one and eternal, expresses itself in Time and through the mind of man; therefore every Scripture must necessarily contain two elements, one temporary, perishable, belonging to the ideas of the period and country in which it was produced, the other eternal and imperishable and applicable to all ages and countries. (4)

Fundamental here is the argument that ideas could both be contextual and transcendental. What is emphasised here is the claim that he was an astute thinker who also appreciated the significance of the contextual inputs in shaping human behaviour while, at the same time, he emphasised the continuity of those core values emanating from these texts which acted as a bridge from one generation to another. Unlike those who were obsessed with the holy scriptures, Aurobindo provided a template to argue that contextual ideas hardly continued beyond a particular phase of history. The Gita, by being pertinent to the human search for a true path to truth, remained a source of intellectual empowerment to humanity in its search for eternal truth. Since it had

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‘permanent value cutting across ages, the Gita’s messages continue to inspire humanity since it was articulated at a particular juncture of human civilization’ (5). Besides having developed a meaningful template of human thoughts, the Gita thus became an instrument which also created a space in the human mind to constantly review and relive what was transferred from one generation to another, presumably to ascertain its claim of being eternally valid as an intellectual text. As history shows, the Gita, by being relevant in different phases of human existence, can be said to have evolved a mode of thinking that ‘continues to be of living importance to mankind. The rest remain as monuments of past but have no actual force or vital impulse for the future’ (5). The aim of this argument was to put across the view that despite having ‘temporal and local character, [the spirit of the Gita] is so large, profound and universal that this little can be universalized with the sense of the teaching suffering any diminution or violation of the foundational ideas on which it rests’ (6). Intrinsic here was the point that the Gita, regardless of its articulation in a specific context, was always a transcendental text which was not just a philosophical treatise, but one with a well-defined set of instructions imbued with the spiritual justification that acted positively for protecting humanity from being insulated from the fundamental ethos of human civilisation. There are two levels of this argument: at an obvious level, Aurobindo forcefully made the point that regardless of its contextual roots since the Gita was based on a dialogue between two mythical figures, it invariably developed the core arguments with reference to the context in which they were articulated; on another wider level, he emphasised the importance of the Gita as a significantly important transnational text since it contained those ideas drawn on values protective of humanity in general. While conveying this point, Aurobindo thus argued that the Gita was directional which he elaborated by stating that by Shastra, we perceive that the Gita means the law imposed on itself by humanity as a substitute for the purely egoistic action of the natural unregenerate man and a control on his tendency to seek in the satisfaction of his desire the standard and aim of his life. (6)

What was implied here was the human desire for well-being, not at the cost of others, but along with others. This was ‘the spirit of Gita’, argued Aurobindo, which was usually misconstrued as ‘merely local and timedriven’. For him, it was a failure on our part to misread the spirit since we often tended to underplay that ‘the deeper truth and principle is implied in the grain of the thought when it is not expressly stated in its language’ (7). So, the Gita continued to be of relevance to humanity for

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it was not just a philosophical discourse but contained those elements of human thought that not only guided but also helped humanity to carve out ideas for attaining the aspired goal. It was reiterated by Aurobindo when he upheld that the philosophical system of the Gita was neither ‘vital, nor profound, nor durable’ (7); what stood out in the Gita was the mode of thinking seeking to establish harmony among human beings … as significantly decisive to sustain humanity as a whole [for this was] not merely an idea or a striking philosophical speculation of philosophical intellect, but rather contains enduring truths of spiritual experience, verifiable facts of our highest psychological possibilities which no attempt to read deeply the mystery of existence can afford to neglect.

Here, one notices a transformation of Aurobindo from being a spiritualist to a cosmopolitan thinker. This is conceptually most significant since this helps us understand why he, despite being a spiritualist, was wholeheartedly devoted to the struggle for India’s political emancipation. As he believed, the British rule was contrary to humanity as it devised a systemic design to exploit one section of humanity by another; on his firm belief in the Gita’s dictum—for Truth, a war was allowed to be waged against those striving to demean humanity—he thus justified aggressive resistance, unlike Gandhi, who never sacrificed means for the ends. He justified the battle against the alien rule for truth by further expanding the point with the argument that the language of the Gita, the structure of thought, the combination and balancing of ideas belong neither to the temper of a sectarian teacher nor to the spirit of a rigorous analytical dialectics cutting off one angle of the truth to exclude all the others; but rather there is a wide, undulating, encircling movement of ideas which is the manifestation of a vast synthetic mind and a rich synthetic experience. This is one of those great syntheses in which Indian spirituality has been as rich as in its creation of the more intensive, exclusive movements of knowledge and religious realization that follow out with an absolute concentration one clue, one path to its extreme issues. It does not cleave asunder but reconciles and unifies. (8)

In order to defend his point of the Gita being a superior mode of harmony among the disparate human beings, he put forward a threefold argument. First, the text of the Gita was the outcome of intellectual interventions by many who devoted themselves wholeheartedly to truth which was one and thus eternal. Hence, it was argued that the messages of the Gita were neither sectarian nor exclusive, but universal. From this

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emerges the second point: he was supportive of processes leading to a synthetic mind which only the Gita upheld. By arguing that synthesis was an outcome of long-drawn processes, Aurobindo added historicity to the Gita which creatively blended a variety of human experiences in different phases of recorded history. Finally, the claim of the Bhagavad Gita was not divisive; it was also a reiteration of his belief in universal humanism, just like what Rabindranath Tagore and Gandhi consistently argued while pursuing their unique modes of thinking. Aurobindo reiterated the above points sharply when he reemphasised that the Gita is not a weapon for dialectical warfare; it is a gate opening on the whole world of spiritual truth and experience and the view it gives us embraces all the provinces of that supreme region. It maps out, but it does not cut up or build walls or hedges to confine our vision. (9)

Explicit here is the claim that the Gita insisted on synthesis whereby it clearly undermined the endeavour towards creating fissures among human beings. It was possible for the author/authors of the Gita to conceive of human existence as an outcome of efforts towards building amity since their ideas were rooted in the Upanishadic, or in Aurobindo’s words, Vedantic texts which he categorically mentioned when he stated that ‘the Gita starts from this Vedantic synthesis and upon the basis of its essential ideas builds another harmony of the three great means and powers, Love, Knowledge and Works, through which the soul of man can directly approach and cast itself into the Eternal’ (9). That Aurobindo was a pragmatic thinker is evident in the above argument for two complementary reasons: on the one hand, his support of the Gita was based on his assessment that it was an attempt to erase differences among human beings since they were artificially imposed on them by interventions from outside. On the other hand, by identifying the sources of unity, he also highlighted those ideas of love, knowledge and works, which were transcendental. His insistence on spiritualism was not separate from his concern for humanity, which he articulated by according priorities to human practices, manifested in love, knowledge and works. What it further means was his emphasis on human endeavour in quest of knowledge which, among others, was complemented by love for all. Implicit here is also the idea that Aurobindo questioned discrimination as a social evil because knowledge which was devoid of love was futile for humanity. One may also suggest on the basis of this claim that he, being opposed to the Western thinkers who always condemned Indians as ‘barbarians’ from their point of view, insisted on

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the creation of knowledge for all entailing that it was possible once love and not hatred was accepted as the driving force behind such an effort.

Bhagavad Gita: Its Nature Written in four years, between 1916 and 1920, Aurobindo’s essays on the Gita were serialised in a monthly journal, Arya, which was later published in the form of books in 1922 and 1928 respectively. As caveats, two points need to be made here: (a) these essays were written primarily when he was away from the Nationalist scene; he opted for an ascetic life by settling in the French colony, Pondicherry, although he wrote many short essays in Bande Mataram during 1907–1908 on the Gita, primarily to put across his views on this text. (b) It does not seem to be odd to suggest that what he wrote earlier had its imprint in the book which finally came out in 1928. So, it is fair to argue that there was a continuity between the ideas on the Gita that he articulated in his earlier short interventions in Bande Mataram and what finally figured in the book. As regards the nature of the Bhagavad Gita, there is an intellectual compatibility between Rabindranath’s approach to the Upanishads and Aurobindo’s approach to this text. Like the former, who believed that the Upanishads were not religious texts but historical treatises articulated by many while recording the unfolding of human civilisation, Aurobindo reverberated the same when he stated that the peculiarity of the Gita among the great religious books of the world is that it does not stand apart as a work by itself, the fruit of the spiritual life of a creative personality like Christ, Mahomed or Buddha or an epoch of pure spiritual searching like the Vedas and Upanishads, but is given as an episode in an epic history of nations and their wars and men and their deeds and arises out of a critical moment in the soul of one of the leading personages face to face with the crowning action of his life, a work terrible, violent and sanguinary, at the point when he must either recoil from it altogether or carry it through to its inexorable completion. (12)

Reiterated here are three critical points, which, besides identifying Aurobindo as a pragmatic thinker, also highlight how he reinterpreted the Gita as an outcome of the worldly experiences of humanity. First, by suggesting that the messages that the Gita put across did not seem to be novel since they were articulated by those important social reformers, Christ, Mahomed and Buddha; it was they, who, by being ready for

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supreme sacrifice for humanity, carved out a path of human salvation that the Gita also endorsed. Critical here is the idea of sacrifice for a cause which was meant to contribute to human well-being in general. Second, by insisting that the Gita contained ideas for completely eradicating the evil-doers even by deploying coercive force, Aurobindo seemed to have had, at the back of his mind, the arguments that he offered to justify aggressive nationalism as a mode of adversely harming the British interests. His passive resistance was not always passive; the transformation from being passive to active or aggressive resistance was conditioned by the behaviour of the perpetrators; if the latter deviated from passive resistance to the deployment of force for subduing the resisters, the opponents were also justified in resorting to appropriate methods according to their priorities. Finally, the Gita was also an articulation of choice in the sense that for the establishment of righteous rule, the forces working for this cause were required to choose an option: if they were scared of the battle, which meant indiscriminate violence and political instability, they were advised to restrain themselves for the consequences were simply disastrous; those who were ready to confront the evil forces for the establishment of a society free from exploitation and lack of love had no alternative but to take the battle to its logical conclusion. It was made explicit by Aurobindo himself when he further argued that ‘the teaching of the Gita must therefore be regarded not merely in the light of a general spiritual philosophy or ethical doctrine, but as bearing upon a practical crisis in the application of ethics and spirituality in human life’ (12). So, as a pragmatic treatise, the Gita, stood out as a means to establish a specific kind of human code of conduct based on spiritual and ethical considerations. In view of this assumption, one is persuaded to assume that at the back of his mind remained the unethical design of the British government while executing its methods of controlling the ruled. Aurobindo did not seem to have privileged the text as an epitome of spiritualism but a design of human behaviour which drew on morality and ethics since, without them, no righteous governance was possible. Hence, it is plausible to argue that his appreciation of the Gita was not one of a spiritualist, but one who endeavoured to build a point of view which paid adequate importance to ethics and morality as twin components of human behaviour. It was made clear in his own statement which underlined that. [O]ur object … in studying the Gita will not be a scholastic or academic scrutiny of its thought, nor to place its philosophy in the history of metaphysical speculation, nor shall we deal with it in the manner of the analytical dialectician. We approach it for help

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and light and our aim must be to distinguish its essential and living message, that in it on which humanity has to seize for its perfection and its highest spiritual welfare. (11)

The Gita was, as Aurobindo envisioned, thus not a scholastic document nor deserved to be academically scrutinised since it articulated a message to establish righteousness in public life by completely rooting out the devilish human designs meant to secure partisan goals and objectives. Implied here is one of the perceptive ideas that Aurobindo continuously propagated in many of his writings, namely his unconditional faith in human endeavour. One must not, however, misunderstand this statement as a justification for fulfilling the goal by hook or crook which was not the case since he paid adequate attention to the morally justified code of conduct that human beings needed to imbibe. During his involvement in the Nationalist struggle, one of the points that justified his permanent split with the Moderates was their failure to pursue the causes of the oppressed, presumably because of their apprehension that it was certain to affect their socio-political reputation and material benefits. Perhaps, his faith in the Gita helped him understand how critical ethics and morality were in governing human behaviour. By supporting aggressive resistance to the brutal British rule, Aurobindo carved a new narrative based on the core principles of the Gita which were articulated very candidly when he persuaded his New Nationalist colleagues to hit back at the colonisers if they resorted to coercive means. It was ‘the humandivine Krishna, the teacher of Arjuna in the battlefield of Kurukshetra’ (15) who remained a source of inspiration to the Nationalists with the rise of New Nationalism following the decline of Moderate nationalism. In Aurobindo’s perception, Krishna was a historical figure; there is a reference to him in the Chandoyga Upanishad although there is hardly concrete proof to substantiate the claim which also justifies that the character was perhaps an outcome of the author’s imagination which might have had a connection with real characters. Nonetheless, a careful reading of the Gita reveals that Krishna ‘stands behind the great action of Mahabharata, not as its hero, but as a secret centre and hidden guide’ for a righteous cause (17). Here, Krishna represented a bridge between the divine and humanity which, by implication, also meant that without providential intervention, human beings remained ‘direction-less’ (18). So, this was not just a symbolic relationship but was necessary for human survival. What purpose did this reference to the interaction between the divine and humanity serve for the Nationalists? There can be two possible answers: on the one hand, by drawing attention to this aspect, Aurobindo prepared a ground for justifying the Nationalist struggle against the unjust British rule or unjust human behaviour as

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appropriate and providentially blessed; on the other hand, his purpose was also to highlight that India’s intellectual tradition was inspirational, which was also an attempt to strongly question the Moderates’ uncritical faith in the Western derivative discourses. One must not miss the point here that Aurobindo also emphasised that success was possible once there developed a creative interaction between the divine and human beings. In order to clearly spell out his argument, he, thus, stated that the Teacher of the Gita is therefore not only the God in man who unveils himself in the world of knowledge, but the God in man who moves our whole world of action and for whom all our humanity exists and struggles and labours, towards whom all human life travels and progresses. He is the secret Master of works and sacrifice and the Friend of the human principles. (19)

He reiterated the point that barring divine help, human beings appeared to be mere physical entities in society with no substance. Does it mean that Aurobindo was governed by the idea that one should wait for providential support before undertaking any feat? Perhaps not, since he, being a karmayogi, always believed in activities which human beings undertake to fulfil the espoused goals. Once they began what they were supposed to, providential help was inevitable. To draw a parallel with the Gita, his defence of the role of Krishna as a teacher helps us understand the point: he meant to argue that had there been no Kurukshetra war which was decided by the Kauravas and Pandavas for securing their rights as rulers, the role of Krishna as a guide would have remained unknown. What it substantiates is that once human beings got involved in activities for a cause, God showered them with support to those fighting for righteousness. Aurobindo’s interpretation of the Gita is perhaps more human than others who also were drawn to this text during the Nationalist context. Two widely known examples are that of Tilak and Gandhi who highlighted those aspects which they felt were useful to galvanise the masses for the political roles they envisaged for them. It was striking that Aurobindo, while underlining the human aspect of the Gita, evolved a new set of arguments for persuading those who were ready to struggle for a righteous reason. Unlike Gandhi and Tilak, who always considered the Bhagavad Gita as a ritualistic text which was critical to some of the fundamental issues that figured prominently in India’s intellectual discourses, Aurobindo was keen to show that Krishna, despite being identified as ‘divine’, was actually ‘a God in man’ which also confirms that his providential knowledge was based on certain qualities which did not seem to be integral to ordinary mortals. Hence, he was

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persuaded to argue that ‘Arjuna is the fighter in the chariot with the divine Krishna as his charioteer’ (21). He drew on the Vedas that also highlighted the association between the divine and human beings by referring to the story of the divine—Indra and Kutsa who was born out of the union between Arjuna and Switra, the daughter of Indra; the crux of the story was the elevation of Kutsa by Indra once he was convinced by the knowledge that the former possessed which he utilised for realising truth. This Vedic parable is a defence of Aurobindo’s argument that providential support was available once the battle was for righteousness. So, by being endowed with knowledge, Kutsa not only represented true consciousness, but was also providentially blessed because of his firm grip over knowledge which was meant to protect humanity from being debased by evil forces. This was one side of Aurobindo’s interpretation. The other side was linked with the appreciation of karma by Arjuna who, once convinced that Kurukshetra was meant to defend humanity, immediately agreed to take part in the war. So, the Gita also focuses on Arjuna being ‘the man of action and not just of knowledge’ (22). From the very beginning, the Gita concentrated on the elaboration of the karmayogi, Arjuna, who represented not the thoughts, the standpoint, the motive of a philosophical or even of a deeply reflective mind or a spiritual temperament [but, he epitomised] … those of the practical or the pragmatic man, the emotional, sensational, moral and intelligent human being nor habituated to profound and original reflection or any sounding of the depths, accustomed rather to high but fixed standards of thought and action and a confident reading through all vicissitudes and difficulties. (22)

Personifying those espoused qualities, Arjuna was an ideal man who designed his courses of action by being morally sensitive to his duties which were meant to serve humanity as a whole. He was a warrior as the situation demanded him of such a role, but he was not of violent Asuric [demonic] disposition, not the slave of his passions, but has been trained to a high calm and self-control, to an unswerving performance of his duties and firm obedience to the best principles of the time and society in which he has lived and the religion and ethics to which he has been brought up. (22)

The above argument is supplementary to the one that follows immediately after this. What is central here is the point that Aurobindo was enamoured by the qualities of Arjuna for being steadfastly committed to his duties since he was convinced that it meant the

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fulfilment of righteousness in a context when the contrarian tendencies appeared to have become prominent. By emphasising this aspect, his primary aim was to make people obedient to their duties, which, however, were hardly stagnant since they were contingent on the prevalent circumstances. Being a pragmatic thinker, Aurobindo was aware that there was nothing which could be relevant to all the eras of history since contexts changed rather rapidly. Hence, the specific principles governing the human code of conduct hardly remained static but kept on changing. What he stressed here was the fact that the time in which human beings were born and raised seemed to be of immense importance in shaping human behaviour. Critical here is also the claim that despite being ‘egoistic like other men’, Arjuna was not at all trained to protect his exclusive interests, but those of the collectivity of which he was a part. As the epic hero was guided by ‘the moral and social code, or dharma, in one word, [his only duty was to] serve humanity … by strictly adhering to religious, social and moral rule of conduct, and especially the role of the station and function to which he belongs’ (23). Despite having realised the consequences, Arjuna was ready to fight the battle since it was not just an ordinary one, but one that was needed to establish humanity by completely weeding out the forces crushing human values and the moral code of conduct. So, the Bhagavad Gita was a gospel of work for a good cause, realised Arjuna. By being critical of those characterising the Gita as ‘the gospel of human action and the ideal of disinterested performance of social duties’, Aurobindo offered a counterargument by emphasising that what the Gita teaches is not human, but a divine action; not the performance of social duties, but the abandonment of all other standards of duty or conduct for a selfless performance of the divine will working through our nature; not social service, but the action of the Best, the God-possessed, the master-men done impersonally for the sake of the world as a sacrifice to Him who stands behind man and Nature. (31)

Implicit here was the claim linked with Aurobindo’s preference for spiritualism to exclusive worldly values, for he believed that with Krishna’s support what Arjuna did was not humanly possible which means that he was blessed by God. It was, therefore, wrong to dub his action in the war field as just obedience to his duties, but a manifestation of action, governed by providential will. His involvement in a battle for reinstating dharma was thus not an outcome of his own initiative, but one that was guided by the Supreme being who was personified by Krishna in the Gita. It was made evident when he clearly stated that ‘the Gita is not a book of practical ethics, but of the spiritual life [which the

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Europeans were] … unable to comprehend [since] … they abandoned the idealism of the highest Graeco-Roman culture and opted for the Christian devotionalism of the Middle Ages’ (31). This was reflected in the importance of a deity in the church which they kept only for Sunday’s worship. By being scathingly critical of the European idealism of God which was reduced to the activities of Jesus who eventually became a deity in Christian churches, Aurobindo was not inclined to undermine the omnipresent God who was neither visible nor had a shape but remained integrally connected with the righteous behaviour of human beings. Further to this point, he also added that God’s presence was felt and not visible, but, He, as a teacher, continued to guide humanity when there was a crisis and debasement of dharmic activities. By picking Arjuna among the Pandava siblings and other relatives among the Kauravas, the omnipresent God chose one person, given his capability for establishing dharma out of many. It is thus logical to argue that Arjuna was called upon ‘to live according to the highest ideals of his age and prevailing culture, but with knowledge, with understanding of that which lay behind, and not as ordinary man, with a following of the merely outward law and rule’ (32). So, the Gita was not, according to Aurobindo, a checklist of items; instead, it insisted on complete surrender to the Almighty with the unconditional belief that His guidance was useful to conduct one’s life. There are two levels of this argument: at the level of common sense, there was the conventional belief that the Gita was a religious treatise insisting on obedience to one’s duties which was not the case; as Aurobindo argued, at another level, such obedience was guided by the Supreme Being which means, he emphasised, that ‘the Gita does not teach the disinterested performance of duties by the following of the divine life, the abandonment of all Dharmas, … to take refuge in the Supreme alone [because] … the call of God is imperative and cannot be weighed against any other considerations’ (33). Fundamental here is the claim that the teachings of the Gita were not, at all, worldly, but out-worldly in the sense that they epitomised a set of duties which were directed to ensure human well-being; they were morally governed and pragmatically guided as Krishna’s argument seeking to persuade Arjuna to take a bow and arrow against his relatives. Aurobindo clarified the point by saying that ‘the Gita replaces the conception of social duty by a divine obligation. The subjection to external law gives place to a certain principle of self-determination of action proceeding from the soul’s freedom from the tangled law of works’ (35). So, human beings discharged their duties not in accordance with what they deemed appropriate but as per the direction of the Supreme Being. According to Aurobindo, this aspect was missing in the earlier interpretation of

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this great text. By referring to the interpretation of the Gita by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay (1838–1894), he questioned that he also failed to understand the kernel of the Gita’s teaching by highlighting the fact that it was ‘a gospel of Duty’, ignoring the importance of the critical role of the divine soul in carving a specific path for those discharging specific roles. One of the reasons for Bankim’s failure to understand the inner dynamics of the Gita, argued Aurobindo, was based on the fact that he laid ‘stress on the first three or four chapters of this text in which the widely-circulated conventional ideas linking one’s action with one’s duty received enormous importance’, and, if they were read independent of the rest of the eighteen chapters, what Bankim arrived at as his conclusions were inevitable (35). To reinforce his belief, he further argued that the Gita never preached disinterestedness [because] the great command to Arjuna given after the foundation and main structure of the teaching have been laid and built, ‘Arise, slay thy enemies, enjoy a prosperous kingdom’ has not the ring of an uncompromising altruism … [but] … a state of inner poise and wideness which is the foundation of spiritual freedom. (36)

The Gita was thus an objectification of human desires governed by providential will. In Aurobindo’s understanding of the text, what was critical was the establishment of an intimate interaction between human beings and divinity which was manifested in action for righteous causes. One confronts two levels of his argument: at the worldly level, he never believed that God was the mover and shaker of the world; instead, it was human beings who performed their duties not by themselves, but only by being guided by the omnipresent almighty who deterministically devised courses of action tuned to the attainment of human well-being; at the spiritual level, his argument was a little abstract since he believed that human contribution to human betterment was spiritually governed and pragmatically executed, which reconfirms that the dialectical interconnection between spiritualism and pragmatism appeared to be one of the most significant criteria in reconceptualising human action with reference to a historical context. Being one who never undermined pragmatism while evolving his unique mode of thinking, Aurobindo thus concluded that ‘the argument of the Gita resolves itself into three great steps by which action rises out of the human into the divine plane leaving the bondage of the lower for the liberty of a higher law’ (37). First, by completely abdicating partisan desires, human beings were expected to plunge into action with the belief that by doing so, they actually discharged their divine responsibilities to the Supreme Self; this was karmayoga or the inclination to shoulder responsibilities; secondly

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by rescinding the desire of the fruit of one’s work, the individuals were also required to completely forget that it was they who remained critical to the work being done since it was likely to create conditions in which the doers started feeling indispensable in the specific context; this was jnanayoga or awareness of what one was supposed to do for realising one’s moral–ethical goal in a particular phase of human history; finally, the acceptance of the Supreme Soul as a guide helped human beings to nurture the belief that they remained futile so long as they were not providentially blessed; this was bhaktiyoga or complete devotion to the assigned work regardless of consequences. The Gita was thus one of those instructive texts that decisively influenced Aurobindo who, however, elaborated its multifarious features once he left the Nationalist scene completely. This was not a new-found interest as far as he was concerned since in his many essays in Indu Prakash, Karmayogin and Bande Mataram, he dealt with why spiritualism was as important as political empowerment since they were dialectically linked in his ideational universe.

Principal Ideas Aurobindo was a rare breed of Nationalists who creatively blended his concerns for national emancipation with spiritual salvation. A careful dissection of his Nationalist phase (1893–1910) reveals that he not only created a new Nationalist design completely different from what the Moderates evolved but also exhorted the importance of being spiritually endowed to accomplish the espoused goal. As argued above, on the basis of his understanding of the core messages of the Gita, human salvation was possible by espousing ‘desirelessness’, ‘impersonality’, ‘equality’ and ‘inner peace and bliss’. He also felt that these principles remained decisive in shaping human behaviour in a specific historical context. There are two caveats in his argument: on the one hand, by upholding these principles as critical to humanity, he set out a specific conceptual scheme to define human behaviour; so long as they were respected or complied with, human beings followed a perfect path for salvation; on the other hand, he also offered a point by saying that these principles were not transcendental or transnational in spirit and texture which further meant that they were relative to the circumstances. What thus comes out of the above elaboration is the claim that Aurobindo was not only pragmatic and contextual in conceptualising his path of salvation but he also surpassed the limitations of his time by being perceptive in so many ways. For instance, most of his writings before the actual spiritual phase of his worldly existence began at Pondicherry. He did

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not differ much from his contemporaries when he wrote on many of the Nationalist issues. Illustrative here are the texts that he wrote for the weeklies with which he was associated after his return from England in 1893. In his new avatar which unfolded with his disappearance from India and arrival in Pondicherry, the French colony, a spiritual Aurobindo appeared to have prevailed over his Nationalist persona although in his Essays on the Gita, one finds many glimpses of his Nationalist ideas being couched in spiritual terms. In this respect, the Gita was not just a spiritual text as far as Aurobindo was concerned; it was also an articulation of his politico-ideological priorities that gained precedence not only in India but elsewhere in the world since they highlighted some of the basic concerns of human civilisation which were not allowed to flourish naturally, presumably because of the exploitation of one section of humanity by another. Conceptually, equality was meant to create a level playing field for everyone. In spiritual terms, it referred to a claim that to the Supreme Self, everybody was equal; once human beings privileged one’s selfish interests at the cost of others, equality in its spiritual sense was sacrificed which led human beings to be self-absorbed and inactive since it resulted in both horizontal and vertical divisions among human beings. A deeper analysis reveals that, at the back of his mind, remained the divisive nature of colonialism which he confronted so long as he was in India. In his conceptualisation, colonialism and equality were two diametrically opposite values which, by implication, created a milieu in which the alien rulers became enemies to those battling for their political salvation or the establishment of equality. To convey what he had in mind, Aurobindo referred to another quality which was also critical to humanity, i.e., the notion of impersonality which was ‘the one immutable spirit’s superiority to the variations of its multiple personality in the world’ (189). Impersonality was a distinct quality which manifested in a context which was immune from discrimination, which was further clarified by Aurobindo by saying that as soon as choice was introduced as integral to human behaviour, the edifice of a discrimination-free society collapsed. By drawing on the role of Krishna in the Gita, he substantiated the claim that to him, ‘none is dear, none hatred, to all he is equal in spirit’ (189). The assumption may not be entirely true if one draws attention to Krishna’s uncritical love for Arjuna; so, he was also charged with practising discrimination. To this, the author of the Gita responded persuasively by underlining that it was Arjuna who was a devout follower of Krishna by completely surrendering to him once he was convinced that his role in the Kurukshetra war was decisive in protecting civilisation. So, he was favoured by Krishna purely on the basis of his gunas or qualities which

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others who took part in the battle lacked. Similarly, ‘desirelessness is an attribute possessed by those who surpassed the meanness of mind and concerns for partisan gains’ (189). Implicit here is the point that desire made human beings selfish and thus generated hatred and enmity which were sources of social, economic and political consternation. In order to get rid of this vice, what was required to be done was to create a milieu in which not only was desirelessness appreciated but also privileged over the narrow human designs for self-gratification. It was easier said than done. However, Aurobindo, while addressing the difficulty, thus, insisted on the inculcation of spirituality because only then do human beings feel connected with those who were victims of socio-cultural and politico-economic discriminatory practices. It was possible, he argued further, once human beings were one and indivisible. Basic here is the point that desirelessness or the concerns for non-possession ‘form the basis of “belongingness” among human beings [which] however was guillotined with the increasing importance of greed, hatred and discrimination’ (189). So, Aurobindo had in mind that these evil forces were likely to raise their ugly heads unless they were completely rooted out from human minds because where there is inequality in the soul, there is evidence of some unequal play of the modes of Nature, motion of desire, play of personal will, feeling and action, activity of joy and grief or that disturbed and disturbing delight which is not true spiritual bliss but a mental satisfaction bringing in its train inevitably a counterpart or recoil of mental dissatisfaction. (189)

Implicit here is the Hegelian dialectics which firmly establishes the point that the context remains critical in the consolidation of thesis and antithesis; it also highlights the inevitable outcome of synthesis. Following this conceptual cue, one is now persuaded to argue that the sources of inequality were bound to be forcefully contradicted by contrarian ideas which, as per Hegel, created a milieu in which equality was certain to strike roots. Hegel’s model was highly materialistic while Aurobindo, being a devout spiritualist assessed the situation differently and, thus, argued that ‘where there is inequality of soul, there is deviation from knowledge, loss of steadfast abiding in the all-embracing and all-reconciling oneness of the Brahman and unity of things’ (189–190). Equality was thus not just an attribute, but an integral part of processes leading to the unfolding of socio-cultural relations completely uprooting the causes of inequality; it was a mindset that did not emerge automatically; it needed to be nurtured by creating

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a context in which sources of inequality were not only despised but also helped build a strong opposition to completely eradicate them. While focusing on the nature of equality, Aurobindo made it very clear that the idea was an exclusive domain of the Gita; in fact, it was championed in many philosophical discourses cutting across the geographical boundaries, presumably because ‘equality is a spiritual device [generating] feelings and temperament in which we rise superior to human weakness’ (190). What was distinctive about the Gita was its intellectual prowess to take us ‘beyond into a higher region where we find ourselves breathing a larger and purer air’ (190). How was it possible for the Gita to become an acceptable template of equality representing prominent philosophical dispositions? As one who always believed in the synthesis of ideas as probably the most effective means of knowing the unknown which also means liberal in the true sense of the term, Aurobindo had an instantaneous answer. According to him, it was possible as the Gita takes [the ideas rooted in different civilisational milieu] … in its large synthetic manner and weaves them into its upward soulmovement, but it gives to each a profounder root, a larger outlook, a more universal and transcendent significance. For to each it gives the values of the spirit, its power of spiritual being beyond the strain of character, beyond the difficult poise of understanding, beyond the stress of emotions. (190)

Critical here is the emphasis that Aurobindo accorded to the methods on which the Gita articulated its ideas. It was not a monochromatic method; instead, it took into account the ideas in various discourses; it was thus a creative blending or a synthesis of multiple ideas which the author imbibed from various civilisational experiences. The purpose of this argument was to suggest that the Gita was not intellectually tied to the experiences of one phase of history or linked with the experiences of one group of individuals who flourished at a particular juncture of human history. Contrarily, it was a fine amalgamation of ideas stemming from multiple civilisational sources. Here, one is tempted to draw a parallel with the Upanishads which were also claimed to have evolved out of processes based on human experiences in different socio-economic and politico-cultural milieu. We must not forget here that the Gita supported violence as morally justified to purge society of evil forces. What ran through the text were the arguments of Krishna seeking to persuade Arjuna to take up weapons of destruction. In his commentary on the text, Aurobindo referred to the conceptualisation of the German philosopher, Nietzsche,

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who also defended war in case it was required for social betterment. His ideal man was a warrior [or] … lion-man [who] occupied the centre in any human undertaking [because their selfless contribution] saves us from the flabbiness and relaxation encouraged by too mellifluous philosophic, religious or ethical sentimentalism which loves to look upon Nature as love and life and beauty and good, but turns away from her grim mask of death, adoring God as Shiva but refusing to adore him as Rudra [the God of destruction]. (41)

Intrinsic here is a reinforcement of the point that without struggle, including the violent struggle against atrocities committed by the strong, human salvation was not possible. By drawing on Nietzsche’s forceful arguments defending violence, Aurobindo morally justified aggressive or active resistance in contrast to the Moderate modes of reconciliatory politics. By being persuaded by the philosophical disposition of Nietzsche, who was blamed since the Nazis drew on his ideas, Aurobindo pitched his argument at two levels: at the philosophical level, he questioned the efficacy of constitutional liberalism in devising modes of replacing the torturous British rule; in other words, that the Westminster form of opposition did not seem to be as effective as was claimed by his Moderate colleagues; at the practical level, Nietzsche provided him with a powerful logic to conceptually undermine the Moderate methods of struggle against colonialism as nothing but vacuous; they neither captured the voice of protest nor upheld the anti-British sentiment by being submissive to the rulers who, they considered, were adequately equipped and also morally inclined to address the genuine socio-economic grievances of the ruled. That it was a false expectation was proved soon and those associated with Moderate nationalism were soon disillusioned. So, struggle, including violent struggle was unavoidable, argued Aurobindo for he believed that war and destruction are not only a universal principle of our life in its purely material aspects, but also of our mental and moral existence. It is self-evident that in the actual life of man intellectual, social, political, moral, we can make no real step forward without a struggle, a battle between what exists and lives and what seeks to exist and live and between all that stands behind either. It is impossible, at least as men and things are, to advance, to grow, to fulfil and still to observe really and utterly that principle of harmlessness which is yet placed before us as the highest and best law of conduct. (42)

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The above conceptual point is evidently meaningful if judged from his uncritical support of the Gita and also Nietzsche. Implied here are three critical points which form the kernel of Aurobindo’s politicoideological priorities: first, it was clear from even a cursory reading of the core of his ideational principles that he, unlike many of the preceding and succeeding Nationalists, did not pay much attention to peaceful resistance since it was hardly effective in combatting a ruthless government. Critical of the Moderates who hardly supported violent attacks on British rulers, Aurobindo firmly believed that no substantial change was possible without hitting those associated with governance as sharply as possible. Second, being aware that it was a Nationalist battle against a mighty force endowed with superior coercive power and also the support of loyalist Indians, he always insisted on organised aggressive resistance which meant that he was less romantic in his perception and more practical. There was another justification which was implicitly articulated above, namely, it was not morally proper to be pacific when the enemy was clearly combative and had no qualms in deploying methods for resistance. Finally, a follow-up of the earlier point highlighting that the value of ‘harmlessness’ was futile since the rulers’ language in this regard was clearly deviant from what the Moderates adopted to ventilate the Nationalist grievances. The devilish system of governance had no place in the civilised world since it survived and also thrived by encouraging ‘Evil [which needed to be] destroyed completely … to lay the foundation of human society which is free from humiliation, exploitation [and] discrimination’ (42). Thus, the complete eradication of the roots of human debasement was not possible so long as colonialism was allowed to survive. By drawing on the Gita, Aurobindo endeavoured to develop a counter-nationalist discourse in contrast with constitutional liberalism which was at the centre stage of the struggle that the Moderates waged against the colonisers.

The Supreme Word of the Gita As argued above, the Gita formed an important pillar of Aurobindo’s politico-ideological priorities. To him, it was not, at all, a holy text; it was simply an articulation of experiences in different phases of human existence which helped him evolve a mode of Nationalist thinking contrary to what prevailed as the dominant discourse. The Gita was, in other words, a treatise which enabled many of the Nationalist thinkers to carve out definite courses of action vis-à-vis the exploitative British governance; it was thus not just a text but entailed a well-defined mechanism to directly harm the exploiters on the basis of those

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inputs which evolved over generations of humanity. Thus, Aurobindo highlighted that the greatness of the central thought of the Gita in which all its threads are gathered up and united, consists in the synthetic value of a conception which recognizes the whole nature of the soul of man in the universe and validates by a large and wise unification in its manysided need of the supreme and infinite Truth, Power, Love, Being to which our humanity turns in its search for perfection and immorality and so highest joy and power and peace. (340)

According to Aurobindo, the Gita was an outcome of an endeavour to complete the ideas that figured in the Upanishads; presumably, it was a text that dealt with a critical situation when human beings delved into the issues of morality and immorality. As the Gita identified, there were three significant qualities of truth, love and power, which constituted a kernel of the ideas that acted decisively in shaping human conduct. For the British, it was the power which was privileged since it also represented love for those endorsing captivity of the weakest by the strongest although it was contrary to truth. There was another side of the narrative: being inspired by the Gita, the Nationalists also evolved a counter-mechanism to harm the British politico-economic interests which were, so far, safeguarded since Moderates, by following the socalled appeasement policy, never allowed the sentiment to strike roots in Bengal. What needs to be highlighted here is the linkage Aurobindo established between the spiritual and the real. His preference for the Gita was based on the argument that it was perhaps one of the most clearly written texts which helped him understand the complex interplay of factors involving the spiritual and the real. In his ideational priorities, such a complex relationship remained paramount which, of course, did not mean that there was hardly one definite path in which this interactive relationship prospered. For the rulers, spiritual commitment to the governance was logical despite not being endorsed by the reality which put forward many contrarian inputs. For the Nationalists, the interactive existence of the spiritual and the real was hardly meaningful since it drew on considerations which were anything but just. Here, the Gita was an instantaneous reference to the Nationalists who always felt that the empire could never be spiritual since the story of its progress demonstrated that not only did it evolve out of deceit, but also thrived by being deceitful. Under no circumstances, the government that came into being in the wake of the British rule was motivated by self-interests. By defending a violent war against unjust governance, the Gita provided the New Nationalists with those conceptual inputs to persuasively justify their attack on alien governance as morally and spiritually appropriate.

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The end of their task was to establish a righteous governance which was at the centre of Aurobindo’s socio-political and politico-cultural preferences. In response to the query that the omnipresent being was hardly discriminatory since it also allowed the foreign government to strike roots in India, Aurobindo replied that ‘He represented ignorance, suffering, sin and evil, love and hatred’,5 the core features of humanity; in a specific situation, some of the features which were to humanity evolved and flourished; in contrast, in some circumstances, it was otherwise which means that the supreme self was always aware that once contrarian tendencies emerged, it was certain that they were to be defeated soon with the consolidation of views opposed to them. This was ‘the fullness of liberating knowledge; it is a knowledge of the Divine within us and in the world at the same time’,6 which also justifies that the supreme being was omniscient and omnipresent. The argument is crystal clear: British rule was a temporary phenomenon since the values that led to its creation were certain to help build a platform for its destruction. This was the wisdom of the liberated man which was not an abstraction but related to ‘conscious thinking [which emerged out of] … the unshaken and untrembling supreme Self responsible for governing the world in a fashion which is not always visible or … [can be captured] clearly’ (352). To him, ‘the distinction between Superior and Inferior hardly exists [for] … He never believes in the separative lower nature of humanity because His basis of conceptualizing the humanity is not based on the binary of superior and inferior, but union with All by submission to the Supreme Self ’ (353). What is distinctive here is the forceful argument that Aurobindo offered with reference to the Bhagavad Gita, viz., humanity was indivisible; the division among human beings was thus unjustified and immoral; by drawing on the history of the rise of autocratic regimes, he also mentioned that, as per the Gita, it did not seem odd since it also dwelled on a continuous battle between good and evil: sometimes, it was the evil that triumphed while, under different circumstances, the contrarian forces thrived, as natural to the historical processes. So, the Bhagavad Gita was an inspirational text to Aurobindo and his New Nationalist colleagues who were persuaded to believe in karma by religiously following the Gita since without karma, no plan for liberating the motherland was likely to succeed. Implicit here was also the point that what was prior was karma with the expectation of a reward, and sustained karma led one to reach one’s destiny. Conceptually persuasive, the ideas of the Gita acted decisively in garnering support for the New Nationalists who, by championing aggressive resistance against the rulers, devised a new design of Nationalist attack on the British and ushered in a new era in India’s Nationalist campaign.

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Being a catalyst, the Gita laid out a conceptually well-defined template for the Nationalists who were now ready to plunge into action, just like Arjuna in Mahabharata shook off his doubts before embarking on his assigned task as shown by Krishna. Once Arjuna was, argued Aurobindo, persuaded, ‘his mind is delivered from doubts and seekings; his heart, turned now from the outward aspects of the world, from its baffling appearance to its supreme sense and origin and inner realities is already released from sorrow and affliction and touched with the ineffable gladness of a divine revelation’ (356). Arjuna, here, was just an instance to forcefully argue the point that in order to achieve the set goal, one was required to be selfless and free from the sense of being rewarded once the task was accomplished. This, in the language of the Gita, was niskam karma—a karma which was performed without expectation. As repeatedly argued in this chapter, Aurobindo’s spiritualism was also integrally connected with his overall Nationalist design which, by drawing the masses to the Nationalist cause as nothing but an unavoidable responsibility, was directed to create a platform for generating and consolidating a mass zeal for an organised struggle against the British rulers. So, the Gita can be identified as a text which was politically utilised by Aurobindo because he felt that it was an effective tool for political mobilisation, especially when the limitations of Moderate nationalism were exposed. In other words, for Aurobindo, the Gita was not a spiritual text per se, but a treatise which was certain to instrumentalise India’s freedom struggle towards its logical conclusion. There is another aspect which also needs to be emphasised here. Once Arjuna was convinced that the war was meant to found an era of righteousness, he, by ignoring the human cost of a war, became, argued Aurobindo, ‘a divine instrument to accomplish the task he was assigned to’ (357). What was critical here was the emergence of an indomitable will to fulfil a task for human betterment. As a pragmatic Nationalist, Aurobindo drew on the Gita’s message to galvanise the masses for the war against colonial exploitation. On the basis of available evidence, it can also be firmly argued that it worked to the satisfaction of the Nationalists.7 It did not escape the notice of Rabindranath Tagore who, in his novel, Ghare Baire (1916) which dealt with the Swadeshi Movement (1905–1908), had shown how the selfless commitment of many Swadeshi activists created an unprecedented zeal among the peripheral sections of society and also forced the ruler to revoke the first partition of Bengal in 1908. Basic here is the point that Aurobindo’s essays in Bande Mataram which clearly created a space for the Gita and its ideals reignited the Nationalists who appeared to have become frustrated with the mendicant Nationalist design pursued religiously by the Moderates. It is also true that the Swadeshi Movement exposed

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its ugly side, especially the deviation of the leaders from what they preached in public which created a fissure between those steadfastly committed to the Nationalist cause and those who became Nationalists for fulfilling partisan goals. Amulya in Tagore’s Ghare Baire was such a character who expressed resentment when he found that the leader of the campaign, Sandip, was hardly as honest or committed to the cause as he projected. So, Sandip, who took a vow by touching the Gita to serve the nation till the last drop of his blood, was a hypocrite, as Tagore had shown. There is a wider point here which was reverberated in the Gita, namely, the message of the Gita hardly percolated down uniformly which confirmed, as Aurobindo argued, that deviants did not seem to be exceptions, at all; instead, their emergence and growing criticality in many activities, in fact, proved the contention. So, Sandip was not an exception because he represented a force which the Gita underlined when Krishna conveyed that humanity progressed out of the dialectical struggle between spiritualism and realism; it was a battle, constantly waged, between two contrarian forces which the Gita highlighted to argue that contradiction remained integrally connected with human progress.

The Gita as Praxis Most of the commentators believe that the Gita is not just a checklist of what needs to be done and what is forbidden; it also provides a template of how an objective is to be accomplished under particular circumstances. This is thus neither a moral nor an exclusive religious doctrine; instead, it is prescriptive in the sense that the text contains a certain set of prescriptions which are suggested to address socioeconomic and politico-cultural deficiencies of the period. Being persuaded by this argument, many of the Nationalists drew on the Gita to justify the modes of protest to the empire they preferred. As argued above, Aurobindo was one of those who always felt that the Gita offered him a conceptual framework to justify the voice he raised against British rule by also opposing his Moderate compatriots. It is evident in his well-thought-out clarifications of the possibilities that the Nationalists should have explored to take their opposition to fruition. The Gita, therefore, epitomised endeavours that the New Nationalists opted for to attain their goal amid Moderate opposition and also punitive British acts. As one who designed the Nationalist challenge in a completely different format, Aurobindo drew on the Gita as it was a text that immediately attracted the Hindus as it constituted an important pillar

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of their ideational universe and also provided him with arguments to defend his unique conceptualisation of nationalism. So, it was a strategic choice that he made deliberately to champion the objective of his preferences. It was evident when he argued that the Gita recognizes that … there can be no absolute, only an immediate practical solution and, after offering to Arjuna from the highest ideals of his age just such a practical solution, which is in no mood to accept and indeed is evidently not interested to accept, it proceeds to quite a different standpoint and to quite another answer.8

Explicit here was Aurobindo’s insistence of the Gita being a perfect example of praxis in the sense that it was governed by the practical needs of the era when the idea of morality or concern for kith and kin remained insignificant. The doers were inspired by their contribution to human well-being, and in view of this objective, the priorities no longer remained the same, as he reiterated by saying that the Gita’s solution is to rise above our natural being and normal mind, above our intellectual and ethical perplexities into another consciousness with another law of being and therefore another standpoint for our action; where personal desire and personal emotions no longer govern it; where the dualities fall away; where the action is no longer our own and where therefore the sense of personal virtue and personal sin is exceeded; where the universal, the impersonal, the divine spirit works out its purpose of the world; where we are ourselves by a new and divine birth … work for all [since] … the motive-power is above us in the will of the Master of our works.

There are three important ideas which are a reinforcement of Aurobindo’s commitment to the ideational priorities that he upheld for reigniting the Nationalist spirit. First, by believing that the Gita was a source of inspiration, he was confident that the text could easily help build a platform to attract those committed to the Nationalist cause. Here, the text was believed to have generated a zeal which was completely missing in the earlier phases of the Nationalist campaign. Second, the text was also an aid to building an organisation for the battle against colonialism in two ways: on the one hand, by insisting that the activists, by renouncing their own priorities, completely surrendered to the political bosses, could also be persuaded to join hands together since they had nothing to pursue except what they had been told to do. On the other hand, this instruction would also be of assistance in establishing a hierarchy in the organisation in which leaders remained

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supreme as far as the led were concerned. Finally, since the activistscum-followers were trained to renounce their own preferences, they were perfectly tuned to what the master chose as their goal under the present circumstance. This was a reiteration of the claim that it was the master who reigned supreme in so far as the activities led to the realisation of goals. The unconditional dependence on the messages of the Gita by Aurobindo also provoked many of his contemporaries to criticise him. Rabindranath Tagore wrote, for instance, scathingly against Aurobindo’s argument for establishing the hegemony of leaders in the Nationalist campaign in many of his critical essays and particularly in his novels, Ghare Baire (1916) and Char Adhyay (1934). If one carefully reads how Sandip, the leader of the Swadeshi campaign, established his hegemony, it is evident that he behaved as a supremo who was not even willing to listen to a different voice from among his colleagues and those who executed the Swadeshi plans at the grassroots. Once the young supporter of the Swadeshi cause Amulaya raised his voice against the hypocrite Sandip, he faced not only criticism from the boss but was also threatened by him with banishment from the group. The example is illustrative of the point made by Tagore which he believed was rooted in the instruction of the Nationalist leadership who appeared to have misconstrued the Gita’s message in a partisan manner. The idea was reiterated by the bard in another equally popular novel, Char Adhyay, where Ela restrained herself in many ways from expressing her love for Atin as both of them were instructed to not encourage these finer sentiments so long as India remained under chains. Here, too, the imposing Indranath played the role of Sandip of Ghare Baire. On Indranath’s instruction, both Ela and Atin were not only forced to renounce love for each other but also unconditionally submitted to Indranath as it was expected of them, given their oath of remaining subservient to the cause of the nation. Their commitment was undiluted which was evident when Atin was ready to kill Ela as she became a burden on the organisation. These two novels by Tagore are a firm critique of the mode of functioning of the so-called Nationalist organisation meant to wrest political freedom from the colonial yoke. Being highly critical of how nationalism was conceptualised with the decline of Moderate nationalism, Tagore also questioned the conceptual foundation of New Nationalism based on a specific reading, particularly of the Gita. According to him, what the Gita insisted on was the abandonment of material comfort, emotional attachment and material possession till the goal was attained at a particular juncture of human civilisation. These were important values which were highlighted in a particular context

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which, of course, did not rule out the possibilities of them being futile in a different milieu. Here, it is also clear that ideationally Tagore and Aurobindo belonged to two different planes: while Tagore was a priest of humanity which he never undermined even for the sake of Nationalist liberation, Aurobindo, by being a hardcore Nationalist, felt that human sentiments were detrimental to the cause, and hence, should not be allowed to control the Nationalist endeavour. The differences between Tagore and Aurobindo were, thus, based on fundamental criteria since, under no circumstances, the former ever sacrificed human sentiments for any other cause since, according to him, humanism was prior to other values. An analytical dissection of the views of Tagore and Aurobindo also reveals that both of them were for human salvation: while Aurobindo was persuaded to believe that ‘true’ emancipation was possible only with the removal of the British rule, Tagore, however, did not think so which was also a source of serious differences of opinion with Gandhi, as is well known. Implicit here was also the view that throughout his active life, Tagore nurtured emphasising universal humanism which he never compromised even for smaller politicoideological gains, namely, political independence from British rule, since it was not enough to eradicate those socio-cultural prejudices segmenting humanity around the superior–inferior axes. Although Aurobindo failed to persuade Tagore, his compatriot among the New Nationalists, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, in his Gita Rajasya (Gita’s mystery) came out openly in support of the views expressed by him. In his commentary, published in 1887,9 Tilak defended Aurobindo by clarifying that the Gita was not preached either as a pastime for persons tired not as a preparatory lesson for living such worldly life; but in order to give philosophical advice as to how one should live his worldly life with an eye to Release (moksa) and to the true duty of human beings in worldly life. (xxxi)

For Tilak, the Gita enunciated a general principle for realising release or moksha which every individual aspired for. So, Krishna’s advice to Arjuna was purported to be a set of instructions for humanity as a whole; it was set out in the context of a war seeking to establish a just rule. While delving into the nature of Krishna’s set of advice, Tilak endeavoured to understand the inner sense of this transcendental text. As per Tilak, the main purpose was to comprehend prakriti (energism) which, in the popular sense, meant as meaning, performing desirelessly the duties which pertain to one’s status in life, according to the arrangement of the four castes, with

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taking up Ascetism (sannyasa). It therefore follows that the sermon given in the Gita to Arjuna is of Bhagavata religion and, in as much as that religion is Energistic. (13–14)

He emphasised that salvation was possible if one was respectful of the duties assigned on the basis of one’s caste identity. For moksha, one was not required to be an ascetic, argued Tilak, since the Almighty earmarked duties according to one’s capability. This is one aspect of Tilak’s understanding of the Gita. The other was drawn out of the advice Krishna tendered to Arjuna to inspire him to participate in a war for the establishment of a righteous regime of authority. Two conceptual influences seemed to have worked while Tilak dwelled on the predicament of Arjuna in the war field when he gave up his authority. As a kshatriya, Arjuna was bound to fight on the battlefield. He was responsible for re-establishing a just society which was on the verge of extinction due to the hegemonic grip of non-righteous practices. Tilak also added a moral dimension while explaining Arjuna’s reluctance because if he fought, it would be a fight with his own people, and thereby, he would incur the terrible sin of killing his ancestors and preceptors, among others; if he withdrew from the battlefield, he would be failing in his duty as a warrior. So, his position was that of one who had to choose between ‘the frying pan and the fire’. Tilak, in his way, thus explained that as a great warrior, [Arjuna] was suddenly caught in the moral net of righteousness and un-righteousness [which put him in] … a great moral dilemma; as a result, his hair rose on end, the bow in his hand fell down, and he suddenly flopped down in his chariot crying – I shall not fight, and ultimately the distant feeling of his duty as a warrior was overcome by the naturally more proximate feeling of love for his brethren and in self-deception, he forgets his assigned responsibilities as a warrior and his commitment as a kshtriya. (34–35)

One notices that Tilak and Aurobindo agreed with the core message of the Gita although their interpretation was a little different. For Aurobindo, the goal was a determining factor; in order to liberate the enslaved motherland, the Nationalists should renounce worldly comforts as Arjuna was instructed by Krishna when the former declined to fight the battle with his relatives. Despite having had the Nationalist goal in mind, Tilak justified the participation of Arjuna as he was duty-bound to unconditionally accept his caste obligations. While explaining the dilemma as ‘natural’ because there was a constant battle in the human mind between the proximate feeling of love for one’s brethren and the duty towards the nation, Tilak resolved the dilemma by justifying the selfless

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sacrifice of the Nationalists for the motherland which was under captivity by the unrighteous foreign rulers. What appeared to have prevailed here was his politico-ideological commitment to the Nationalist cause. Hence, he was persuaded by the core belief on which the Gita rested, namely, for a righteous objective, human beings needed to resort to means which were otherwise not justified since they enabled them to reach their destiny. By admitting the dilemma in which Arjuna was caught, Tilak, as a humanist, did not seem to rule out the importance of human sentiments in guiding human behaviour. According to him, it did not appear to be ‘unnatural’ as we were human beings and nurtured in a milieu in which these values struck organic roots. The Gita was, for him, one of those most perceptive texts which helped us understand the distinction between ‘Action and Inaction … to explain how a man, on many occasions, becomes nonplussed by being caught in the dilemma’ (39). While Aurobindo hardly left space for doubts, Tilak put across the point that the situation did not seem to be as simple as it appeared to be. That human beings suffered from the dilemma Arjuna confronted just before the great Kurukshetra war had begun did not seem to be unusual to him. He, however, never justified that Nationalists should withdraw given the fact that being Nationalists, they should not refrain from being violent, if necessary; or being actively involved in aggressive resistance for the achievement of the goal, which means that Tilak came closer to Aurobindo in regard to the principal objective of New Nationalism although he referred to the difficulties that needed to be effectively addressed, which were likely to be detrimental to the achievement of the final objective.

Aurobindo’s Justification of Just and Unjust Deeds There are now enough inputs to suggest that Aurobindo hardly suffered from the dilemma Arjuna confronted on the battlefield. As explained above, there was one fundamental reason, namely, he was reluctant to participate in the war to avoid the human cost and also his personal suffering by anticipating the outcome of the war. For him, the war can never be ‘a just war’ even if it means the establishment of a righteous regime. Hence, war was always ‘unjust’ given the emotional cost that was unavoidable. Aurobindo dealt with this issue a little differently by drawing on the Gita’s message. By drawing attention to the distinction the Gita made between ‘action according to the license of personal desire and action done according to Shastra,’ Aurobindo highlighted an important conceptual dimension of this text. While justifying the latter as ‘morally appropriate’, he further argued that

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the action of personal desire belongs to the unregenerated state of our nature and is dictated by ignorance or false knowledge and an unregulated or ill-regulated kinetic or rajasic (seeking to enjoy for gratification of personal needs) egoism. The action controlled by Shastra is an outcome of intellectual, ethical, aesthetic, social and religious culture; it embodies an attempt at certain right living, harmony and right order and is evidently an effort, more or less advances according to circumstances.10

Intrinsic here is the argument that the shastric justification was adequate to defend a particular course of action in contrast with the egoistic inclination of individuals for a particular choice. Arjuna was persuaded to fight since he was convinced that his participation was meant to protect humanity from being jeopardised by evil forces. So, he discharged a role that was directed to contribute to human well-being in general. As per Aurobindo’s reading of the Gita, this was the crux of the message which was neither religious nor holistic, but based on practical considerations. Arjuna’s involvement in the war was, in other words, needed for the establishment of dharmic rule which declined, to a considerable extent, with the rising tide of those forces meant to ruin. Hence, Aurobindo insisted that aggressive resistance was for righteousness, which he articulated by saying that, inspired by the shastra, it was a means to a step, in advance, and therefore mankind must first proceed through it and make this Shastra its law of action rather than obey the impulsion of his personal desires. This is a general rule which humanity has always recognized [because] … it is an idea of an order, a law, a standard of its perfection, something other than the guidance of its desires or the crude direction of its raw impulses. (477)

In Aurobindo’s conceptualisation, the Gita was thus directional in the sense that not only did it set out a milieu but it also devised a design to establish a righteous human existence. Unlike Tilak or Tagore, by prioritising political freedom, Aurobindo was hardly deterred from the goal he set for himself. By implication, he can be said to have paid less attention to the socio-cultural issues which consolidated the division around the axes of caste, class and ethnicity. He came closer to Gandhi who, like him, also believed that political freedom from colonialism was prior to liberation from socio-cultural prejudices. So, the Gita was, to him, a political treatise as well which allowed him to justify aggressive nationalism in a milieu in which the colonisers sacrificed shastric values to fulfil their personal desire as they had the licence to kill if required. Linked with this was his idea of shastra, which was not just a checklist of dos and don’ts but a righteous

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path for ensuring human salvation. By clearly stating that shastra contained rules and regulations to be followed to realise humanity in its true sense, he also questioned their conventional interpretation. Critical of the endeavour towards simply making the shastra a set of inflexible and partisan rules, he persuasively argued that once ‘the Shastras ceases to be a living thing and degenerates or stiffens into a mass of customs and convention, … they lose their relevance’ (478). Implicit here was his stern critique of shastras being reduced to ‘mere customs and conventions’ which upheld the view that, like many of his contemporaries, he also raised a voice against the hegemony of the self-proclaimed custodians of Hindus who, by taking advantage of the illiterate masses, defined the core shastric values in accordance with their partisan aims and objectives. His arguments need to be understood at two levels: at a rather conventional level, he insisted that the claim that the shastras were infallible was overstretched since they hardly contained any axiomatic principles that were transcendentally valuable or appropriate which, by implication meant, at a more serious conceptual level, that since the shastras are fallible and hence inadequate for human betterment, new rules needed to be evolved or, to quote Aurobindo, ‘they are to be discovered by the effort of the race or by some great and illuminated individual mind who embodies the desire and seeking of the race’ (478). In order to defend his point, he referred to the contribution of Buddha who, by being disillusioned with orthodox Hinduism, developed a code of conduct which was reflective of the effort he undertook to purge Hinduism of those decadent features undermining humanity. A careful study of how shastras changed was articulated by the Gita, and Aurobindo reinforced the idea that they were for human well-being; so long as they were tuned to the aspired goal, shastric designs remained relevant, and if it was otherwise, they became futile. Implicit in this assumption was also a process of how these socalled axiomatic rules underwent change, and as his essays elaborate, this bothered Aurobindo to a significant extent. According to him, the process of change began with the individuals who raised their voices once they found that the shastric instructions were restrictive in nature; they no longer ‘correspond to their ideas … and hence, no longer remain valid as an effective tool for searching the exact path to follow’ (479). While further elaborating the point, he added that since the shastric directives did not ‘correspond to [the individual’s] inner way of being, it not to him sat, [the thing that truly is], the highest of best or real good’ (479), they became inert and clearly mis-directional. With this assumption, Aurobindo made a very perceptive comment which is useful to defend the argument that

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he was not exactly an ascetic but a pragmatic activist who always resorted to the arguments leading to the fulfilment of his espoused goal of national liberation. According to him, the Shastra is something impersonal to the individual, and that gives it its authority over the narrow personal law of his members; but at the same time, it is personal to the collectivity and is the outcome of its experience, its culture or its nature. It is not in all its form and spirit the ideal rule of fulfilment of the Self or the eternal law of the Master of our nature, although it may contain in itself in small or larger measure indications, preparations, illuminating glimpses of that far greater thing. (479)

There are two levels at which Aurobindo pitched the argument: at the individual level, the shastras were argued to be ‘impersonal’ which meant that their commands were inviolable in so far as individuals were concerned. The reason needed to be located in the fact that they provided guidelines for individuals to remain tuned to a path that the shastras devised for sustaining a system for collective well-being. In other words, being a part of a collectivity, individuals were just constituents. At the level of collectivity, the principles enunciated in the shastras were, according to Aurobindo not sacrosanct which entailed that they were subject to change. Here, too, the reasons are not difficult to seek. The shastras were for the collective well-being, and once they were deviants from this objective, they appeared to be of no use for the collectivity. Hence, they needed to be changed to carve out a new path for common well-being. The exercise was legitimate because in so doing, the well-being of the collectivity was ensured. Aurobindo also added a caveat here by saying that ‘an exceptional man, spiritual, inwardly-developed was not bound by the shastric directives once he found an alternative to what is prevalent’. Implicit here is also the idea that since the shastras were ‘a living thing and … tuned to provide the best rules for human existence, they are to be changed once they lose their viability in discharging the role for which they are designed’ (480). Implications of this statement are twofold: on the one hand, the claim that shastras were not immutable created room for change which also substantiates the point made earlier that it was required to make them meaningful in response to the changing socio-economic and politico-cultural realities; on the other hand, the main purpose was also established that individuals remained the sole driving force in this process as, with their experiences, they were the best judges of what appeared to be of use to them. Hence, Aurobindo was persuaded

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to argue that ‘we create our own truth of existence in our own action or mind and life, which is another way of saying that we create our own selves, are our own makers’ (482). One is tempted to characterise Aurobindo’s formulation as ‘Marxist’ given the priority that he accorded to human efforts. The argument is hardly tenable since, despite having elements of Marxist thinking in his claim, the idea is derivative of the Upanishads which, as Tilak reconfirmed, were written by ‘many saints on the basis of their temporal experiences in different phases of human civilization’11 which substantiates the claim that they were not static but changed in accordance with the contextual inputs. There should be a caveat here since the point that there was nothing sacrosanct about the available transcendental texts is likely to be misleading. This is not so, as Aurobindo clarified that they were directed to contribute to universal humanism which upheld the view that so long as their primary objective remained undisturbed, changes were welcome to the extent they were tuned to the main goal these treatises stood for.

Identified Modes for Fulfilling the Goal Aurobindo was drawn to the Gita because it, instead of focusing on rituals as other scriptural texts did, set out concrete steps for attaining a set of goals which were directed at human well-being. Regardless of the nature of the means which included violence, the Gita stood out as an appropriate design for human salvation, claimed Aurobindo. What were the identified paths that the Gita suggested for the accomplishment of goals? As per him, it upheld three main elements of ‘sacrifice, giving and askesis or tapashya’ (484). While explaining them, he further stated that ‘all dynamic action involves sacrifice or tyaga, giving or dana and askesis or devotion to a goal with [telescopic] … attention’ (484). Explicit here are those steps which human beings must undertake to reach their destiny, not only for themselves but also for society as a whole. The Gita was one of the modes, perhaps most persuasive, to pursue the goal which was evident in the dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna on the battlefield. In order to persuade Arjuna to participate in the dharmic war, Krishna evolved a conceptually meaningful theory to establish that human beings remained critical to transformation, meant to bring about human betterment. In general, human beings resorted to acts which were based on whether they contributed to their individual enjoyment which in Krishna’s vocabularies were sattwic (non-discriminatory deeds), rajasic (exclusive interests) and tamasic (harmful to others). Of all these types of action, the Gita naturally

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favoured sattwic acts since they were meant to ensure common wellbeing. In Aurobindo’s words, the sattwic temperament in the mental and physical body turns naturally to the things that increase life, increase the inner and outer strength, nourish at once the mental, vital, physical force and increase the pleasure and satisfaction and happy condition of mind, and life and body, all that is succulent and soft and firm and satisfying. (485)

Being involved in a struggle for righteous governance, it was obvious that Aurobindo argued strongly for sattwic temperament. His fierce critique of Moderate Nationalists appeared to have been derived from his uncritical faith in the sattwic mode of action which Krishna insisted was the only means that the ordinary mortal needed to imbibe for raising them from the mean world to divinity. Hence, he argued that ‘the sattwic sacrifice comes very near to the ideal and leads directly towards the kind of action demanded by the Gita’ (487). In support of this argument, he further suggested that ‘work done with a disinterested religious faith or selflessly for humanity or impersonally from devotion to the Right or the Truth is of this nature, and action of this kind is necessary, for our perfection; for it purifies our thought and will and our natural substance’ (487). The purpose here was to inculcate a mindset governed by human will for human betterment without socio-economic and politico-cultural discrimination. The sattwic temperament was one of those certain means which led humanity to realise that the pursuit of narrow or partisan interests, instead of contributing to positivity among them, laid and consolidated viewpoints contrary to the ideals. Hence, the Gita underlined that ‘the sattwic tapashya … is done with a highest enlightened faith, as a duty deeply accepted or for some ethical or spiritual or other higher reason and with no desire for external or narrowly personal fruit in action’ (489). As is emphasised again and again, the Gita is, perhaps, one of those ancient texts of knowledge that stood out for its clarity of thought. There was no exception here. For clarity, the Gita described four kinds of ‘sattwic askesis’: physical, verbal, mental and moral. These were all interconnected, for the mental and moral perfection or purification of the whole temperament by acquiring ‘gentleness and a clear and calm gladness of mind, self-control and silence’ (489) were expressed in one’s verbal articulation of the self and also one’s outward behaviour upholding what one learnt by being morally and mentally tuned to the highest ideals of humanity. This was the askesis of the sattwic dharma which was highly prized in the system of ancient culture because ‘its culmination will be a high purity of the reason and will, an equal soul, a deep peace and calm, a wide sympathy

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and preparation of oneness, a reflection of the inner soul’s divine gladness in the mind, life and body’ (489). By consistently practising askesis, human beings acquired those qualities instinctively and hence they ‘can pass away … by transcending themselves into the settled godlike energy of the supreme nature’ (490). To this was also added the importance of shraddha or respect, because without being respectful and obedient to the gurus and their preaching, no one succeeded in one’s mortal existence. It was possible, felt Aurobindo, who argued by saying that the Gita’s message contributed to the evolution of a soul that was not guided by ‘mere intellectual faith, but its concordant will to know, to see, to believe and to do and be according to the Supreme vision and knowledge is that which determines by its power the measure of our possibilities of becoming’ (492). Reiterating the point that the Gita’s supreme vision or idea remained critical to designing the ideational universe containing principles governing human beings, Aurobindo expressed his unconditional faith in this ancient text. For him, it was not just a text but contained those principles which were forgotten in the wake of the growing hegemony of mental servility of the colonised rather knowingly. To defend this point, he referred to the Moderates’ endeavour in popularising constitutional liberalism as perhaps the only available politico-ideological model for India’s emancipation under British tutelage. Associated with this, he also put across a view suggesting that servility became an integral feature of the ruled, presumably because they were too scared of or mesmerised by the British rule to understand that it was an exploitative regime. So, the Gita provided him with an intellectual tool to generate an indomitable will ready to confront the colonisers as perhaps the only option under the present circumstances. As one who always believed that mere negotiation with the rulers on their terms was of no use, he encouraged the New Nationalists to pursue aggressive resistance if necessary. The Gita provided him with a mechanism to devise a mode of action which was readily accepted also in view of the exposure of the obvious limitations of Moderate nationalism. What is now clear is that the growing importance of the Gita in the Nationalist discourses was largely due to the fact that it helped build a new language of Nationalist politics which was completely anathema in the past, presumably because of the hegemonic grip of the Moderates in the campaign against colonial governance. Along with his emphasis on askesis, Aurobindo also strongly argued for renunciation or tyaga for being involved in karmas or acts integrally connected with the highest ideals of humanity. Tyaga was spontaneous self-abdication which was possible once human beings were totally free from worldly comfort and were thus prepared to undertake any feat for common well-being. Hence, he mentioned that

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the essence of renunciation, the true Tyaga, the true Sannyasa is not any thumb of inaction but a disinterested soul, a selfless mind, the transition from ego to the free impersonal and spiritual nature. The spirit of this inner renunciation is the first mental condition of the highest culminating sattwic discipline. (497)

Critical here was the concern for complete renunciation which was not just dissociation from worldly comfort but the creation of a mindset that was absolutely free from desire or the sense of possession. What persuaded Aurobindo was not the spiritual appeal of such a directive, but the appreciation for complete asceticism, without which those involved in the struggle against the evil forces were devoid spiritually of the strength that was required to accomplish the goal. Being a renouncer was thus an essential criterion for pursuing the goal which the New Nationalists upheld in contrast with the Moderates who, by being politico-ideologically Loyalists, never championed resistance at the cost of the empire. As Aurobindo engaged himself in fiercely critiquing his erstwhile Nationalist colleagues, he also realised that since the Moderate means were vacuous given their obvious limitations, what was required to be done was to evolve a new method of Nationalist campaign. In this sense, his model of aggressive or active resistance was as much contextdriven as it was inspired by the intellectual impetus that he drew from the Bhagavad Gita. To support his disillusionment with Moderate nationalism, he heavily drew on the Gita, as argued consistently in this chapter, presumably because it was an appropriate text, according to him, to galvanise the moribund nation. As mentioned above, the Gita was perhaps one of those rare texts which was easy to understand and thus easy to decipher the directives that Arjuna received from Krishna in a particular context of human civilisation. While identifying the gunas (attributes), the Gita spoke of ‘the five indispensable requisites for the accomplishment of the work that Krishna wants Arjuna to do’ (497). These four (497–498) were (a) the frame of body, life and mind which were critical to an individual since they upheld the soul and also remained critical to the nature of the soul; if they were weak, the soul was likely to be devoid of those qualities which were required to develop a strong soul; (b) the doer or karta, was also important since it was the doer who was responsible for executing ideas and actions guided by the soul; the various socio-economic and politico-cultural reasons of impetus which were important as driving forces under specific circumstances to push one kind of action as against another; (c) endeavour which was also critical since without effort, nothing moved; this was an attack on laziness and also a stern criticism against the fatalistic individuals who preferred ‘inaction’, believing that

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whenever it was required, the providential intervention was made for human betterment; (d) fate or daivam, that drew our attention to the ‘influence of the Power or powers other than human factors, other than the visible mechanism of Nature, that stand behind these and modify the work and dispose its fruits in the steps of acts and consequences’ (498). Being a believer in spiritualism as a force in human existence, it did not seem odd when Aurobindo insisted on the role of daivam in determining human action. A careful reading of the aforesaid explanation by Aurobindo reaffirms a commonly used dictum identifying the root of success: it is stated that an amalgamation of effort, luck and chance leads to success in human life. Here, human beings have no control over luck since it always remained elusive; chance is conceptually explicable and conceivable while effort is based on individual initiatives. The five qualities that Aurobindo referred to were reiteration of the views that the Gita identified which were not exactly novel, but were articulated in a clearer language. As those governed by rajasic and tamasic temperaments lacked the required gunas for translating the Gita’s directions into action, Aurobindo depended on those with sattwic temperament because ‘it seeks always for a right harmony and right knowledge [in contrast with] … the rajasic mind [drawing on] … an egoistic will of desire, and tamasic action [based on] … an ignorant instinct or the unenlightened impulsion of the physical mind and the crude vital nature’ (500–501). In support of his argument, he further added that tamasic action is one [highlighting] a confused, deluded and ignorant mind, in mechanical obedience to the instincts, impulsions and unseeing ideas; rajasic action [was that which] a man undertakes under the dominion of desire with his eyes fixed on partisan gains or hope for fruits of one’s labour, and nothing else. (501)

Here, by highlighting the inherent attributions of the tamasic and rajasic mindsets, Aurobindo strove to emphasise the importance of the sattwic mindset which the Nationalists sought to liberate the nation from the alien rule. Those with tamasic and rajasic temperaments were unfit to be Nationalists in the real sense of the terms, given their inbuilt weaknesses to satisfy their partisan desire by hook or crook. As their primary aim was the gratification of personal aims, they, under no circumstances, ever felt inspired to effectively address the prevalent socio-economic and politico-cultural ills as this was hardly of help in fulfilling their own goal. By exposing the circumscriptions, Aurobindo was now in a position to justify why the sattwic mind was preferable in

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circumstances when the Nationalists were required to abandon worldly comforts and those which were detrimental to the fulfilment of their goals. It was possible once the Nationalists imbibed the sattwic spirit and guided their action on those terms. He, thus, by highlighting the characteristics, justified his point by saying that sattwic action is that which man does calmly in the clear light of reason and knowledge and with an impersonal sense of right or duty or the demand of an ideal, as the thing that ought to be done whatever may be the result to himself in this world or another, a work performed without attachment, without liking or disliking for its spur or its drag, for the sole satisfaction of his reason and sense of right, of the lucid intelligence and the enlightened will and the pure disinterested mind and the high contented spirit .… At the line of culmination of sattwa, it will be transformed and become a highest impersonal action dictated by the spirit within us and no longer by the intelligence, and moved by the highest law of the nature, free from the lower ego and its light or heavy baggage and from limitation even by best opinion, noblest desire, purest personal will or loftiest mental ideal. (501)

It is evident that on the basis of his understanding of the principal message of the Gita, Aurobindo realised that the sattwic temperament was meant to protect humanity in crises. The Gita, therefore, contained those fundamental precepts which were critical for humanity to cross hurdles over centuries. There are three core points that deserve attention here: first, what was critical to Aurobindo was to inculcate a mindset which was completely free from the inclination for partisan gains. The reason was too simple to understand since so long as human beings nurtured personal interests over those of collectivity, it was difficult for them to appreciate the activities meant to contribute to common well-being. Second, as a follow-up of the earlier point, it was emphasised that one was expected to work ‘without attachment’ for common causes; otherwise, the aim for collective betterment was likely to nearly lose its significance in any venture since the attainment of partisan interests stood in contradiction with those of the collectivity. Finally, the sattwic temperament was also critical to the evolution of a mindset privileging the fulfilment of collective objectives over those with exclusive aims. It was a temperament that created a template in which the ideas of the common good became ingrained out of activities that drew on the mindset of challenging those with partisan aims and championing endeavours for collective well-being. What the argument confirmed was the claim that the

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sattwic mindset did not emerge all of a sudden; it was an outcome of long-drawn processes over centuries of human opposition and also sacrifices for a cause.

Summarising the Argument The Gita is a text in defence of an argument supportive of the claim that human action remains at the foundation of transformative human existence. By focusing on the enigma of human action with reference to a historical context, the text developed those ideas which were transcendental in character. Like the Upanishads, not only did it contain ideas critical to human existence but it also offered directional statements to evolve meaningful modes of thinking based on insights which remained peripheral at a particular juncture of human existence. Most perceptive of the statements, this contains the kernel of the Gita. Contrary to the well-entrenched human reluctance to avoid changing the milieu which was suffocating since it was given, the Gita is a set of directives suggesting that nothing is insurmountable, and determination remains one of the important sources of human zeal and capacity. The Gita does not, argued Aurobindo, evade the difficult problem of reconciling the full active life of man with the inner life in the highest self and spirit; it advances what it holds to be the real solution; it does not deny the efficacy of the ascetic renunciation of life for its own purpose, but it seems that that cuts instead of loosening knot of the riddle. (528)

Formatted dialogically, like Plato’s The Republic or The Statesman, the Gita was a quest for human existence which was righteous and just. It was also the directional text that suggested a set of rules and regulations to reach destiny. Implicit in Aurobindo’s statement was a desire to associate ‘man’s inner life with the Supreme Being’ which is the first component of his politico-ideological vision. There was thus a spiritual need to put human life on the track that, to the authors of the Gita, was the only appropriate mode of designing human existence. The second important component was ‘desirelessness’ which means that as human beings, they needed to engage in their assigned task without expectations; if the goal was achieved, it happened because the time was ripe; if it was otherwise, the quantum of work that was required to be done was not adequate, and hence, instead of giving up, human beings continued to be active as long as the goal was not attained. Being a karmayogi, Aurobindo was persuaded by such

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a conceptualisation highlighting the importance of work regardless of whether it led to the fulfilment of the objective for which the work was initiated. The third component was a reinforcement of the second one in the sense that since righteousness was the goal of human activities, one was persuaded to undertake roles which one would not have otherwise. Exemplified here were the arguments Krishna offered to Arjuna when he left the battlefield as it led to the killing of his kith and kin. The third component of renunciation connecting other components with the principal argument stands out in the Gita by insisting on human existence without attachment in all things, a soul self-conquered and empty of desires. The reason was, as per Aurobindo, not difficult since it was an idea that drew on ‘ancient wisdom’. According to him, the ideal of renunciation, of a self-conquered stillness, spiritual passivity and freedom from desire is common to all ancient wisdom. The Gita gives us its psychological foundation with an unsurpassed completeness and clearness [resting on the common experience] that the lower self of [individuals] engages in the fulfilment of exclusive material goals which never justifies renunciation; … there is also the higher nature and self of our spiritual being, self-possessed and selfluminous [that] remains at the root of renunciation. (529)

Renunciation was, therefore, possible with complete detachment from those which intimately connected the self with the worldly existence. It was difficult for Arjuna to resort to violence leading to the killing of his relatives which was certain to be a source of pain and agony to him. Hence, Krishna insisted on renunciation which, of course, did not mean that he suggested self-abdication which the ascetics or sannyasis followed. Instead, his advice was for tyaga or withdrawal for the moment since it was required to free humanity from civilisational decadence or civilisation decay. Sannyas was not a possible solution as Aurobindo justified with reference to the Gita ‘so long as we live in the body which [by being emotionally connected with] others deter the processes that culminates in the elevation of the self to the level of sannyasi’ (531). A renouncer was thus not a sannyasi but was capable of practising withdrawal which was described by Aurobindo as the impersonalisation of the self. In his words, ‘impersonality is a denial of limitation and division, and the cult of impersonality is a natural condition of true being, an indispensable preliminary of true knowledge and therefore a first requisite of true action’ (532). Impersonality was, in other words, a state of being devoid of self-ego which finally culminates in ‘the impersonal Brahman in our consciousness forming inner impulses to

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pursue goals for the sake of higher ideals’ (533). With the acquiring of this knowledge which comes … by a highest bhakti [unconditional devotion to the cause]; it is attained when the mind exceeds itself by a supramental and high spiritual seeing of things and when the heart too rises in unison beyond our more ignorant mental forms of love and devotion to a love that is calm and deep and luminous with widest knowledge, to a supreme delight in God and illimitable adoration, the unperturbed ecstasy, the spiritual Ananda. (536–537)

Renunciation, bhakti and ananda formed the nucleus of the Gita; it is, thus, not just a ritualistic text, but contains a specific mode of thinking to regenerate a moribund section of humanity. By reinterpreting the Gita, Aurobindo defended his claim of it being an important source of inspiration for those involved in and also supportive of New Nationalism in opposition to the views espoused by his erstwhile colleagues inspired by constitutional liberalism. In other words, to Aurobindo, the Gita was more than a religious text since it allowed him to devise a unique Nationalist voice to show that Moderate nationalism was hardly an effective path to attain India’s emancipation from colonialism. He, by endorsing the Gita’s ideal of niskamkarma, defended his claim since, he believed, it was the best option at that historical point of India’s Nationalist struggle. This was the idea that he reiterated in the collection, Essays on the Gita, with twenty-four chapters. Even at the risk of repetition, let me lay out the fundamental principles which constituted the kernel of the Gita as Aurobindo understood. In the penultimate chapter, ‘The Supreme Secret’, he most clearly articulated the three visionary ideas which the Gita upheld. First, by demanding of human beings ‘renunciation of desire, attachment and ego, [he actually created a milieu in which] the lower self was transfigured to be transformed into a higher self ’ (548). Second, the Gita also demanded that to be a complete renouncer, one was required to live in ‘the self and Spirit, to see the Self and Spirit in all and all in the Self and Spirit, and all as the Self and Spirit’ (548). Finally, it also insisted on ‘the quietistic inner largeness … reconciled with an outer dynamic active living, the two coexistent or fused together in the impersonal infinite reality and illimitable action of the one impersonal Power and sole eternal Existence’ (548). The above brief intervention is most illuminating in the sense that Aurobindo, by drawing on the Gita, had shown most persuasively how a moribund nation could be awakened by highlighting India’s glorious intellectual heritage. So, there are two ways in which his interpretation needs to be read: on the one hand, it was, of course, a serious endeavour on his

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part to comprehend the inner dynamics of the text, the Gita, since in it remained the kernel of the messages that it articulated unambiguously. At another level, the Gita was, to him, a meaningful text to rejuvenate the nation to resort to means for salvation; it was, to him, an intellectual tool that Krishna utilised to persuade Arjuna to be ready for the dharmic war in Kurukshetra. The idea here is twofold: on the one hand, the holy dialogical text had extreme values in grasping the nature of ethical dilemma confronting Arjuna at a critical juncture of the Kurukshetra war; on the other hand, it was the New Nationalists, including Tilak and Aurobindo, who, by emphasising the importance of the messages of the Gita as an inspirational design, embarked on a politico-ideological project by drawing on indigenous intellectual sources which never received adequate attention in the past. Aurobindo’s purpose was, therefore, to develop a mindset which was devoid of exclusive feelings for oneself since they were repugnant to the contemporaneous highest ideal. By drawing on the Bhagavad Gita, he persuasively defended his arguments in a context when even the so-called Nationalists seemed to have conveniently forgotten their primary duties to the motherland. So, Aurobindo’s study of this ancient text was context-driven which also helps us make the argument that it is required to be understood at two levels: at one level, it was an attempt to grasp the inherent messages for humanity which appeared to have lost their salience; at another level, it was also an attempt to reinvigorate the nearly dead Nationalist campaign which was more or less a policy of appeasement of the rulers by the Moderates. In such a context, the Gita served a very useful purpose which Aurobindo articulated by underlining that the Gita destroyed the illusion of the mind; the soul’s memory of its self and its truth concealed so long by the misleading shows and forms of our life has returned to it and become its normal consciousness; all doubt and perplexity gone, it can turn to the execution of the command and do faithfully whatever work for God and the world may be appointed and apportioned to it by the master of our being, the Spirit and Godhead set-fulfilled in Time and universe. (561)

What was critical to Aurobindo was to evolve a mindset which Krishna in the Gita intended in the changed Nationalist milieu. By highlighting the enormous capacity of the human mind, Aurobindo had no qualms to suggest that with the primacy of such a realisation, the self came to realise that nothing was impossible. Hence Aurobindo argued that the Gita proposed a model to ‘reconcile and even effect a kind of unity between the inner spiritual truth in its most absolute

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and integral sense and the outer actualities of man’s life and action’ (563). The Kurukshetra war was not just a battle for establishing the political hegemony of one section of humanity over another; it was an endeavour to defend humanity against attempts made by the evil forces for its complete decimation. The Gita also evolved a design to highlight the core characters of the human mind that ‘insists on salvation by the observance of established dharmas, the loral law, social duty and function or the solutions of the liberated intelligence’ (569). What is emphasised here is again the importance of the human mind that was guided by those laws of humanity contributing to common well-being. Implicit here is also the point that, by being drawn to the Gita, Aurobindo seemed to have highlighted that with its insistence on ‘common well-being’, the Gita also upheld the view that it meant the ‘well-being’ of all. Given its relevance long after the Gita was codified, Aurobindo concluded the discussion that by providing ‘a living message, [the Gita] … still brings for man the eternal seeker and discoverer to guide him through the present circuits and the possible steeper ascent of his life up to the luminous heights of his spirit’ (571). Implied here are two fundamental assumptions, namely, (a) human beings continued to remain relevant for activities tuned to the realisation of humanistic goals; and (b) if they were undermined, human beings had every right to combat such designs since these were the providential directions as the Gita established unambivalently. The above lengthy discussion has tremendous conceptual salience in three complementary ways: first, it was evident that what triggered Aurobindo to undertake such a study was not just an attempt to draw out reasons merely for spiritual salvation; a surface reading of the text, however, may make readers think accordingly. An in-depth analysis of how he elaborated the entire dialogical text that evolved in the background of a war between evil and good forces reveals that it was not so since it was articulated when Aurobindo was already entrenched in the Nationalist campaign which was primarily guided by the Moderates. Second, as argued above, the Gita was hardly a holy text being appreciated for clearly stipulating a checklist of dos and don’ts for humanity; instead, it became a realistic design for rejuvenating the Nationalists in a context when nationalism was reduced to a means to please the rulers by the ruled. Many available studies show that Moderate nationalism was a cloak to express the loyalty of the so-called Nationalists to the colonisers. Gradually, the Moderates realised their mistakes, and British rule was condemned as ‘un-British’ by the leading Moderate thinkers, including Dadabhai Naoroji and R.C. Dutt. Aurobindo’s effort was more than complementary since he also supported aggressive resistance which contradicted the politico-ideological priorities of the Moderates.

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Finally, the Gita was also a path-finder for the New Nationalists; since the 1907 split in the National Congress, which led to the emergence of the New Nationalists and also the growing importance of Lal-BalPal in the anti-British struggle, one also notices a constant search for defending the Nationalist zeal by drawing upon the exclusive indigenous sources of politico-ideological inspiration. It was a break from the past since by being dependent on Western discourses, the Moderates never paid attention to the voice supportive of the claim that India already had a rich intellectual heritage. Aurobindo’s endeavour was, thus, a remarkable feat in conditions of intellectual servility. We must not, however, miss out on the fact that the Brahmo Samaj was also active in unearthing India’s lost intellectual heritage in collaboration with the Asiatic Society of Bengal.12 One of the leading members of the Samaj, Debendranath Tagore, invited scholars well versed in Sanskrit from Varanasi to translate the ancient texts, the Vedas and some of the Upanishads, which means that a new era had already begun which was manifested in the urge for knowing India’s rich intellectual past. So, one is persuaded to argue that Aurobindo represented a trend among his colleagues who were also keen to discover India’s intellectual-cultural heritage.

Gandhi and the Bhagavad Gita The discussion shall remain incomplete unless one draws attention to Gandhi’s interpretation of the Bhagavad Gita which he first translated and then interpreted. Primary was his concern to understand the inner substance of the Gita which was, to him, largely an ethical text in the sense that it contained a list of codes of conduct for deviant human beings. Unlike Aurobindo, who conceptualised the Gita as a directional text to establish a righteous rule, Gandhi construed it in terms of its contribution to humanity as a whole by laying out a specific template accordingly. For Gandhi, the Gita was, in other words, a text that revolved around concerns for human well-being. Hence, in Gandhi’s conceptualisation, the text stood out as a set of ideas linked with the elevation of humanity to a level when human beings were free from desires of exploitation or discrimination of any kind. What was thus critical to him were those ideas justifying the Gita as an instructive text highlighting a particular stream of thought useful for common betterment. It is evident if one focuses on the summary of the text that Gandhi put forward on the basis of his own understanding of the Gita. First, he was persuaded to believe, as the Gita devised, that there are four methods of knowledge of the self which were (a) jnanayoga, (b) karmayoga, (c) dhyanyoga and

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(d) bhaktiyoga. Here, what was emphasised were the means by which one had access to knowledge. Implied here is also the claim that there was hardly a single device to acquire knowledge; there were at least four which also referred to the fact that given the difference of human nature, the means of gaining knowledge also differed. Second, the Gita also claimed that the creation of the world was possible only through the connection of purusha and prakriti. Intrinsic here is the emphasis that the prakriti–purusha combination led to the creation which entailed a twofold claim: on the one hand, it was highlighted that the dissociation between the two meant the end of creation; on the other hand, it also generated a zeal for balancing the relationship between prakriti and purusha, for the domination of one was also an impediment to the unfolding of humanism in its real connotation. Third, by accepting that human beings were socio-culturally disparate, Gandhi drew from the Gita, that despite being so, there also remained one core from which human beings emerged. This argument has a political import in the sense that, on the basis of this, he appeared to have questioned the British claim that Indians were ‘barbarians’, and hence, they needed to be civilised which also justified colonial intervention in areas that failed to successfully combat the interventionists. Finally, by emphasising the importance of the omnipresent Supreme Being, Gandhi spoke in the same voice as Aurobindo, by suggesting that human beings remained mere actors who were not exactly independent while acting for a cause; the directives of the Supreme Being were thus unavoidable. The second aspect that received Gandhi’s attention can be said to have corresponded with what Aurobindo suggested in his commentary on the Gita. According to Gandhi, a careful reading of the text revealed that it drew our attention to the contradictory human mindsets despite being nurtured in nearly similar socio-economic and politicocultural contexts. The two pairs of characters were thus integral to humanity regardless of the differences in the prevalent context; they were: the enlightened and the unenlightened; the disciplined and the undisciplined; the man of faith and the man without faith; the gooddoer and evil-doer and so on. Following the Upanishads, he thus argued that these distinctions are useful analytical tools to conceptualise human behaviour in a particular context. One may also argue that they had political substances since enlightened, disciplined and men of faith, among others, were useful for attaining the politico-ideological objectives since they internalised the importance of these ideational goals for human betterment. Connected with this was Gandhi’s firm belief that the caste system emerged at a particular juncture of human history when these distinctions acted decisively in demarcating humanity on the basis of their gunas or attributes. Hence, while explaining his point,

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he did so by referring to the qualities that one should possess to be placed in the caste hierarchy, or, in his parlance, ‘social organism’. By being true to his ideational priorities, he thus mentioned that a Brahman’s function or work presupposes and must evidence the qualities of serenity, self-denial, long-suffering and bestowed with spiritual knowledge; a Kshatriya’s work, the qualities of valour, spiritedness, magnanimity; a Vaishya’s work will be the production of wealth from land, cows and commerce; and a Shudra’s work is to help the rest by bodily labour.13

Despite having been criticised for having held the so-called archaic division of humanity which was also retrogressive and contrary to his view that humanity was indivisible, Gandhi stuck to his conceptualisation by emphasising that such a specific ‘social organism’ was relative to the period of history; it is simply idiotic to conceive of a society of being stagnant or static; transformation was the key to social progress. Hence, those who misunderstood Gandhi were criticised as having been unable to appreciate the cycle of history. With this clarification, Gandhi further said that as human beings, we were helpless without providential blessings. Here, he also clarified that for him, God or providential force was ‘not outside us; he is in the heart of us all and we perpetually revolve around Him’ (113). What disappointed him most was the deliberate endeavour on the part of those nurturing evil forces towards establishing that ‘many of us forget that we revolve round Him and feel that we revolve round some other centre, the centre of our narrow selves’ (113). An analytical dissection of this point underlines its politico-ideological significance. As is well established, one of the important aspects of Gandhi’s passive resistance was selfbelief or being capable of challenging a well-equipped enemy because the Satyagrahees were inspired by a higher ideal of human freedom and emancipation from artificial bondages. So, being governed by ‘the narrow selves’ was a deterrent to the attainment of the goal which was also directional to the Nationalists. Hence Gandhi declared that ‘it has been my endeavour, as also that [of] some companions, to reduce to practice the teaching of the Gita as I have understood it [which also taught us that] … even through failures we seem to see rays of hope’ (126). So, the Gita was accepted as a source of inspiration, as Aurobindo emphasised repeatedly in his Essays on the Gita. Similar to Aurobindo, besides characterising failures as an impetus, Gandhi also underlined the importance of ‘renunciation of fruits of action’ which was the key message which he articulated by saying that ‘renunciation is the central sun, round which devotion, knowledge and the rest revolve like planets’

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(129). In tune with the teaching comprised (a) desireless action, (b) renouncing fruits of action, (c) dedication of all activities to God, and (d) surrendering oneself to Him body and soul. By qualifying the Gita’s rendering of renunciation, Gandhi also drew our attention to the fact that it never meant abdication of desire in an absolute sense since the Gita itself hinted that ‘who renounces reaps a thousandfold’ (131). Implicit here is the idea that the renunciation of the Gita is the acid test of faith [because] … he who is over brooding over results often loses nerve in the performance of his duty. He becomes impatient and then gives vent to anger and begins to do unworthy things; he jumps from action to action never remaining faithful to any. He who broods over results is like a man given to objects of senses; he is ever distracted, he says goodbye to all scruples, everything is right in his estimation and he therefore resorts to means fair and foul to attain his ends. (131–132)

In the above clarifying note, the bridge of ideas between him and Aurobindo is useful for understanding why the Gita constituted a foundational pillar in their respective politico-ideological preferences. First, like Aurobindo, Gandhi also believed that the Gita’s insistence on ‘desirelessness’ was supportive of their ideological Nationalist mission because, in a long-drawn struggle, failure was also integral to human action for salvation in opposition to the evil forces. So, renunciation was essential to a battle for righteous causes. Second, unless one was indoctrinated in selfless involvement for a cause, one was likely to be disappointed with failure which did not seem unusual in a battle against the well-equipped opponents. Only with the inculcation of renunciation, one was able to absorb the shock of failure as inevitable since a sustained attack on the source of evil led one to succeed, as history demonstrates. Third, both Aurobindo and Gandhi subscribed to the view that renunciation, being a critical source of inspiration to the Nationalists, did not come automatically; it needed to be inculcated as the Gita had shown when Krishna persuaded Arjuna to rescind human concerns as justified in light of his contribution to the establishment of righteous governance by completely weeding out the evil forces. Hence, renunciation was not just for spiritual gain, as was commonly believed; it was also a pragmatic mode of galvanising the Nationalists into action for freedom and emancipation from British rule. Finally, by dismissing the idea that the Gita was not just a description of a war between cousins but ‘between the two natures in us – the Good and the Evil’ (136), Gandhi defended his political discourse of nationalism as a battle between two contrarian

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ideational universes. It also meant that for Gandhi, the Gita was not just a spiritual discourse but one that also represented an inner battle within oneself between the two contradictory tendencies. He thus insisted that to be a true Satyagrahee, one was required to kill the evil forces to allow the good forces to thrive. Unless one was committed to this, it was difficult to become a true Satyagrahee who needed to be steadfastly committed to non-violent resistance despite provocation to the contrary.

Concluding Observations Aurobindo and Gandhi’s insistence on the Gita being an important source of Nationalist inspiration does not appear to be justified on the surface since the text is usually defined as spiritually ordained. A careful reading of the text with reference to the context, however, brings out the dimension which generally escapes the attention of casual readers of the interpretation that these two chief priests of Indian nationalism provided. There is hardly a point of contention if one suggests that the Gita became an important text at a particular juncture of India’s intellectual churning. With the foundation of the Indian National Congress in 1885, the Moderates gained supremacy in the Nationalist struggle which they articulated in their preferred format. Whether it was appropriate or not does not seem to be a relevant question because the Moderate responses to the Nationalist issues were context-driven, and hence, they were justified, one may aptly claim. There is, however, no disagreement among the analysts that the Moderate failure was one of the reasons for the rise of New Nationalism following the split within the National Congress in Surat in 1907. Aurobindo and his New Nationalist compatriots emerged as challengers to the established norms of anti-British agitation, espoused by their erstwhile Nationalist colleagues. So, the role of Moderate nationalism cannot be dismissed given its historical importance in generating a voice of opposition. By ideologically challenging the Moderates’ faith in constitutional liberalism, as it meant a pursuit of an appeasement policy vis-à-vis the colonisers, the New Nationalists devised a new prism of nationalism by being drawn to India’s indigenous intellectually valued discourses. One must not forget to mention that Aurobindo’s discourses on the Gita were made available in the public domain in 1922 and later in 1928 in a revised form. His effort was preceded by concerted endeavour by many upright intellectuals long before he embarked on this task. One may suggest that the trend began roughly with the emergence of Rammohun Roy and Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay who can be said to have

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instilled a curiosity in many of the Indians in the indigenous discourses, like the Vedas and Upanishads and also the epics, the Ramayana and Mahabharata. It continued with greater zeal once the Brahmo Samaj arrived on the scene and undertook many activities to popularise them. The Tagores, Dwarkanath, Debendranath and Rabindranath, played a critical role in this mission. So, one should not forget that the efforts of Tilak, Aurobindo and Gandhi were a continuity of what began in the early part of the 19th century, especially with the intellectual intervention of Rammohun Roy directed to champion the indigenous sources of knowledge. One always confronts a question that of all the texts, why did Aurobindo focus on the Gita? The issue needs to be addressed at two levels: first, at the commonsensical level, one may be persuaded to argue that since the text was written after he completely dissociated from the Nationalist campaign in 1910 and adopted an ascetic life in the French colony, Pondicherry, it was an outcome of his spiritual awakening. The argument appears to be plausible if one prefers a contextual understanding of the text in its substantial meaning. An indepth study of the essays, however, reveals that a mere contextual study was not enough to get into the kernel of what he wrote in those twentyfour essays, the aim of which was also to articulate messages from this transcendental text seeking to address the Nationalists’ concerns. As the above-detailed discussion clearly shows, Aurobindo wrote these essays not just to quench his spiritual thirst, but also to understand the practical advice that was implicit in this dialogical text. Hence, at a level when the Gita ceases to be a mere spiritual text, it provided a wellspelt-out design of countering the non-righteous system of governance that evolved at the behest of foreign rule in India. So, Aurobindo, by decoding the spiritual messages, put the Gita before the Nationalists as a source of inspiration to battle against perhaps the mightiest empire of the 20th century. It was a strategic design since, by being integral to the indigenous mindset, the Gita immediately struck an emotional chord with the people at large, cutting across boundaries of caste, class and creed. As the discussion in the chapter confirms, it is fair to argue that Aurobindo was a spiritualist-nationalist; so was Gandhi since both of them, including many of his colleagues in the Nationalist campaign, believed that spiritual strength was indispensable for the Nationalists who, while being involved in the struggle for national liberation, were also empowered by those ideas which were rooted in India’s rich intellectual heritage. The aim here was to generate self-confidence which was not possible by being glued to the derivative discourses with Western roots. As history proves, both Aurobindo and Gandhi succeeded to a great

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extent since the Moderate Nationalist campaign remained confined to a microscopic minority, while the movements that unfolded with the decline of Moderate nationalism spread out to the length and breadth of India. The task that the New Nationalists accomplished was critical to the Gandhian Satyagraha campaign which not only transformed the character of Indian nationalism but also its contour by involving those who, so far, remained peripheral to the Nationalist struggle. A cursory look at the changing complexion of Indian nationalism also reveals that while the Gita and other ancient texts helped build an intellectual foundation, the Nationalist campaign derived its inspiration also from the leadership that created a new genre of thinking which was readily acceptable, presumably because of its roots in the Indian psyche. So, the Gita can be identified as the magical wand which assisted the Nationalist leaders to carve out a new narrative of struggle by drawing impetus from the indigenous intellectual legacies in which mental servitude was severely attacked in an unprecedented manner. Fundamental here is the point that in the construction of definite politico-ideological priorities that gained momentum in the Nationalist context, especially in the 20th century, the endeavours towards developing those ideational parameters acted decisively in political mobilisation. The Gita was perhaps one of those influential texts which remained inspirational to the Nationalists across generations despite adverse consequences.

CONCLUSION

I Aurobindo Ghose, who later became the spiritual master, Sri Aurobindo, was a unique conceptual wave in the sense that he combined nationalism with his spiritual quest. Born in 1872 in an upper-middle-class family in Bengal, he was raised with the hope of becoming an Indian Civil Service officer just like any of his privileged contemporaries. His ambition of becoming an officer of the empire remained unfulfilled which led him to accept a teaching assignment in the princely state of Baroda. Despite being happy there, he came back to Bengal to repay his debt to Mother India by participating in the ongoing struggle against British hegemony. Once in Bengal, the teacher Aurobindo became a Nationalist par excellence who devoted himself wholeheartedly to the battle for the Nationalist cause that many of his colleagues had already joined. During the 1905–1908 Swadeshi Movement in Bengal which was organised to annul the first partition of Bengal in 1905, he was one of the prominent leaders who also exposed the inherent limitations of the Moderate wing in the Indian National Congress. Critical of the Moderate mendicant nationalism, he devised a design which gradually gained momentum as revolutionary nationalism although, in the official discourses, it was dismissed as the terroristic adventure of a certain group of disillusioned Indian youths. Aurobindo: An Ideologue of New Nationalism is an innovative conceptual design to rearticulate his politico-ideological priorities with reference to what he wrote in two weeklies, Karmayogin and Bande Mataram in nearly two decades between 1893 and 1910. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the book claims that Aurobindo was one of the few thinkers who carved out a new narrative for Indian nationalism which later blossomed fully once Gandhi (1869–1948) appeared on India’s political scene. In two significant ways, he was a pioneer of many creative ideas which were foreign to India’s prevalent Nationalist discourses. As is well known, with the formation of the Indian National Congress in 1885 at the initiative of a retired British civil servant, A.O. Hume, India’s Nationalist campaign was articulated in liberal-constitutional terms. The phase, known as the Moderate phase, represented an era of conciliatory politics when the constitutional liberalism triumphed since those who questioned British supremacy were unquestionably British Loyalists. 281

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There were, however, sporadic endeavours which ran contrary to what the Moderates preferred. Nonetheless, they remained dominant as far as India’s Nationalist campaign was concerned. The rise of Lal-Bal-Pal heralded a new era in the Nationalist counter-attack since they not only condemned their effort as an attempt to please the British rulers but also attacked them as an important pillar for the empire as they always accepted the colonisers as harbingers of change for India. By being mesmerised by the system of governance that unfolded in India at the behest of the colonial masters, the Moderates preferred to consolidate the British rule which the trio, Lal-Bal-Pal, explained as a symbol of servility at the cost of the nation. The tussle led to the rise and increasing importance of the critiques of the Moderates, presumably because they were considered inadequate to fulfil what their opponents espoused, even at the risk of being heavily punished. Aurobindo was born at a time when such ideological churning was taking place. On the one hand, the Moderates declined, and on the other hand, their bête noire, the New Nationalists, emerged slowly as a powerful voice, presumably because not only did they succeed in persuading many sections to participate in the Nationalist campaign but also gave them a powerful voice against the exploitative colonial authority. For the Moderates, the Nationalist language was one of imitation while for those who replaced the former, it was a creative design of combatting the brutal and repressive alien government. In a nutshell, the idea of freedom underwent a radical change with the rise of the New Nationalists. It was Bal Gangadhar Tilak who stirred the participants in the Nationalist struggle with his slogan ‘swaraj is my birthright and I will have it’. Here, by Swaraj, he meant the right of the Indians to govern themselves which, by implication, meant, the removal of alien governance since it was impossible so long as India remained enslaved. Unlike many of his predecessors, he was perhaps one of those votaries of communal amity since his conceptualisation of Swaraj was inclusive because he strongly felt that unless Hindus and Muslims joined hands for the cause, the struggle for Swaraj remained elusive. New Nationalism is, thus, integrally connected with an ideational universe which flourished once Moderate nationalism became almost defunct as an ideological force. It was evident with the rise of a group of Nationalists who clamoured for Swaraj in the sense of being free from external politico-ideological control. Their primary aim was to inculcate collective sentiments among those opposed to the British Raj, cutting across class, caste and ethnicities. The arrival of the New Nationalists ushered in a new era in Indian nationalism which was no longer articulated in constitutional-liberal language. The New Nationalists did not appear to have been constrained by the means of struggle; for them, the goal was more important than the methods which were deployed

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to attain the same. So, not only in terms of the goal but also in terms of means, the New Nationalists carved a new conceptualisation of India’s struggle for freedom. Aurobindo was one of the main architects which was evident in his regular columns in Karmayogin and Bande Mataram so long as he was an active participant in the Nationalist campaign for emancipation. These regularly written texts by him identify that his politico-ideological priorities were a firm critique of the Moderate mode of Nationalist struggle and also different from how Gandhi articulated his non-violent resistance to the Raj. Aurobindo thus stands out in the pantheon of those who championed the rights of the colonised amid immeasurably difficult circumstances in two respects: first, with the change of the Nationalist vocabularies, the New Nationalists, of which Aurobindo was one of the chief proponents, nearly discarded the methods resorted to by his earlier Moderate colleagues. For instance, the claim that ‘Swaraj is my birthright’ was a unique voice which gained momentum with the increasing importance of the New Nationalists in India. Second, the Moderates were active once a year, only during the annual session of the Indian National Congress, and were confined to the articulation of resolutions seeking favour from the rulers; they were careful while placing their demands before the colonial masters since they knew that their success was contingent on the rulers being favourably disposed towards them. Hence, the contemporary description of Moderate nationalism as ‘mendicant nationalism’ gained currency. Related to this is the second point defending that New Nationalism was a completely different breed in many ways. Prominent among them was the constant effort on the part of those espousing Swaraj to always remain active in being involved in the Nationalist campaign. A careful perusal of Aurobindo’s written texts published in the weeklies Karmayogin and Bande Mataram reveals that he dealt with issues which, he felt, were complementary to the attainment of Swaraj. In other words, by seeking to develop an ideological unity among those with identical aims, Aurobindo acted decisively in cementing a bond among the Nationalists who preferred New Nationalism to the erstwhile Moderate modes of opposing the British hegemony. New Nationalism is a uniquely conceptualised phenomenon. At one level, it was a conceptual bridge between Moderate nationalism and Gandhi’s approach to the freedom struggle that unfolded in the second decade of the 20th century. On another, the construction is testimony to the arrival of a new phase in India nationalism, and with it, a new set of Nationalist ideologues and also participants. The nature of opposition to the Raj was altogether different from that of the New Nationalists as they held a completely different kind of politico-ideological priorities. For them, the Moderate design for seeking concession or their

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conciliatory methods needed to be discarded instantaneously to develop a new language of nationalism. With the split of the Indian National Congress in 1907, they achieved their goal although the process can be said to have started with the publication of the Karmayogin and Bande Mataram later, two important mouthpieces which, by identifying the obvious limitations of the Moderate means, redefined the Nationalist goal which immediately created many constituencies of support across the country. Contrary to the Moderates, the New Nationalists metamorphosed the political circumstances when the British rulers were no longer appreciated as ‘benevolent’ but viewed as ‘exploiters’. It was evident in what Aurobindo mentioned in Bande Mataram when he stated that ‘the idea of free and united India has been born and arrived at full stature in the land of the Rishis, and the spiritual force of a great civilization of which the world has need, is gathering at its back’.1 In contrast with the claim that the Nationalists propounded the idea of Purna Swaraj (complete independence) in the 1929 Lahore Congress, the aforementioned statement reveals that the process had already begun in 1907 when Aurobindo and his colleagues put the demand for a ‘free and united India’ in the public domain. Besides demanding a free India, they also emphasised the importance of a united India which was highly critical, especially after the revocation of the first partition of Bengal in 1908 and the formation of the Muslim League in 1906. Questioning the Moderate verbal appreciation of communal amity, Aurobindo also felt that the Nationalists were required to undertake steps to evolve a design for camaraderie among the Indians irrespective of class, caste and ethnicity. In his ‘Swaraj and the Musulmans’, published in Karmayogin, he thus argued that Hindu-Mohomedan unity cannot be effected by political adjustments or Congress flatteries. It must be sought deeper down, in the heart and the mind, for where the causes of disunion are, there the remedies must be sought.… We must strive to remove the causes of misunderstanding by a better mutual knowledge and sympathy; we must extend the unflattering love of the patriot to our Musulman brother, remembering always that in him too Narayana dwells and to him too our Mother has given a permanent place in her bosom; but we must cease to approach him falsely or flatter out of a selfish weakness and cowardice.2

Based on his firm belief that ‘intellectual sympathy can only draw together, the sympathy of the heart can alone unite’ (31), Aurobindo provided a realistic blueprint for communal harmony. Mere verbal sympathy was futile in view of the well-entrenched socio-cultural prejudices of the caste Hindus against the Muslims, particularly in

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Bengal. What he, thus, insisted was to build bonhomie among the communities by being emotionally together. This was not possible overnight as the roots of the schism were far deeper than was assumed. Although Aurobindo did not provide a detailed road map, he, by highlighting the importance of ‘removing’ misunderstanding, hit the bullseye. By believing that for communal accord, misunderstanding needed to be eradicated, what he endeavoured was to build sociopsychological bonhomie among those living in India despite being socio-culturally disparate. As later history shows, the failure of the Congress leadership to meaningfully address this communal chasm, if not animosity, led the Muslims to alienate from the mainstream Nationalist platform. Neither the Congress nor the Muslim League appears to have paid adequate attention to the growing distance between the two major religious communities, Hindus and Muslims, which culminated in India’s vivisection in 1947. A perceptive thinker, Aurobindo, along with his New Nationalist colleagues, carved a new narrative of the Nationalist campaign which was nearly inconceivable when it appeared in the public domain. Aurobindo: An Ideologue of New Nationalism is thus a challenge to the existing Nationalist historiography and also endorsement of the argument that he was ahead of his age: it is a challenge since the text provides newer inputs to view one of the predominant priests of New Nationalism. Conventionally, Aurobindo is usually clubbed with those identified by the British government as ‘terrorist’ or ‘Extremist’ which normally highlights the methods he deployed in attaining the goal. It was thus not surprising that he was incarcerated in the famous Manicktola Bomb case in 1907. There is no evidence to completely discard his involvement in pursuing ‘terroristic’ methods although his writings in Karmayogin and Bande Mataram firmly establish that he was definitely one of those Nationalists who did not seem to have been persuaded to accept that peaceful ‘passive resistance’ was effective enough to achieve India’s independence. The argument has substance because of his constant reference to the rise of Japan as one of the major global powers following her victory in the 1904 war against a mighty Russian empire. This is also to reaffirm here that Aurobindo, by reconceptualising nationalism, and especially Indian nationalism, put forward a model which neither corresponded with his erstwhile Moderate colleagues nor with that of Gandhi. His uniquely structured and innovatively conceptualised New Nationalism is a class by itself for it was a seriously pursued endeavour to rearticulate the Nationalist narrative when the British-engineered Moderate nationalism ran out of steam. Being one of the principal flag-bearers of New Nationalism, Aurobindo was perhaps one of the pioneers in developing a unique

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Nationalist language based on those ideas which helped reinvent India. For instance, by giving the vision of Mother and the mantra of Bande Mataram, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay (1838–1894) converted, argued Aurobindo, ‘in a single invocation a whole people to the religion of patriotism … [and with such a vision] … a great nation can never again bend its neck in subjection to the yoke of a conqueror’.3 While Bankim prepared a moribund nation for the battle against the brutal rulers, the contribution of Bal Gangadhar Tilak (1856–1920) was no less insignificant. Not only did he evolve a language by creatively amalgamating India’s past wisdom with what she derived from the Western discourses but he ‘Indianized the nationalist campaign by also drawing upon India’s rich socio-cultural heritage … [which] was visible in bringing back Shivaji and Ganapati festivals’ (645). These festivals immediately established an emotional chord between the Nationalists and those who were mobilised for the cause. The revival of nearly forgotten religio-social events was perhaps one of the most effective Nationalist strategies by the New Nationalists because it eased their task ‘by bringing the masses to the campaign, by founding the greatness of the future on the greatness of the past, by infusing Indian politics with Indian religious fervour and spirituality’ (645) which not only led to the political awakening of the people across Maharashtra but also helped build a solid support base for the Nationalists elsewhere in India. Aurobindo was swayed by Tilak’s steadfast commitment to nationalism despite having suffered through regular jail sentences which put him in an exalted position in the Nationalist struggle. According to him, Tilak was a class by himself because not only was he a patriot with ‘inflexible will, a man of sincere heart and thorough action [but also because of] … his readiness to sacrifice and face suffering’ (655–656). Along with Tilak who brought back India’s socio-cultural traditions, Dayananda (1824–1883) also provided inputs to Aurobindo and his compatriots to develop New Nationalism as a politico-ideological alternative. While assessing his role in evolving a distinct ideological voice, Aurobindo noted that ‘amidst the chaos and obscurity of old ignorance and agelong misunderstanding, his was the eye of direct vision that pierced to the truth and fastened on that which was essential’.4 Not an ascetic but a social reformer, Dayananda was hailed by Aurobindo as one who ‘found the keys to the doors that time had closed and rent asunder the seals of the imprisoned fountains’ (675). Intrinsic here is the claim that it was Dayananda, who drawing upon the Vedas, persuasively argued that these texts were equally critical to understanding India’s rich intellectual traditions. Through his thorough studies of these ancient tracts, he also claimed that it was a colonial conspiracy to have undermined them just to ascertain that the colonised Indians needed

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the colonisers to transform themselves from being ‘barbarian’ to being ‘civilised’. As the contemporary evidence suggests, this was the argument forcibly made by Edmund Burke and his followers in the 18th century to justify colonialism in India. As combatants, many of the Vedic scholars came forward to counter the argument by insisting that the Vedas and Upanishads provided libertarian ideational visions for humanity in general. Dayananda was one of the leading scholars whom the New Nationalists accepted as compatriots with the same mission. Hence, it was not surprising that Aurobindo paid so much attention to his interpretation of the Vedas as it was very useful to persuasively argue that India also had a great intellectual tradition which appeared to have lost its salience with the hegemony of the British Empire. As stated above, New Nationalism was a conceptual idiom which unfolded and thrived in the late 19th and early 20th century. Given the fact that Aurobindo articulated his Nationalist voice in the New Nationalist language, most of the texts in Karmayogin and Bande Mataram were codified accordingly. At one level, the New Nationalist language was an outcome of historical processes leading to the near decimation of the Moderates and parallel rise of their bête noire—the New Nationalists held centre stage, presumably because of their success in reinventing the Nationalist voice in the changed socio-economic and politico-ideological milieu. Despite having brought a new wave of enthusiasm among the Nationalists, Aurobindo and his colleagues did not succeed to the extent they expected in drawing the masses to the Nationalist fold. One of the reasons was perhaps their near failure to successfully counter the claim that they represented a particular section of Indian demography, and hence their endeavour was not as effective as it should have been. Nonetheless, the New Nationalists were, at another level, harbingers of a qualitatively different kind of Nationalist intervention which unfolded with the rise of mass politics at Gandhi’s behest in the second decade of the 20th century. So, their politicoideological priorities were both an advancement over the Moderates’ design of nationalism and simultaneously an aid to the Gandhian mode of anti-British campaign leading to India’s political emancipation in 1947. Aurobindo was, thus, in other words, a beacon of light to those frustrated souls who realised the obvious limitations of the Moderates and also assisted mass nationalism to grow and spread nationally in the Gandhian phase by redesigning the politico-ideological priorities of the Nationalists in accordance with New Nationalism. The aim here is not to narrate the familiar biography of Aurobindo. What needs to be emphasised is the sudden change in Aurobindo’s approach to humanity which one noticed in 1910 when, by abdicating the Nationalist agenda, he left for the French colony, Pondicherry, to

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satisfy a completely different kind of curiosity. There was, of course, a unity of thought: so long as he was involved in the Nationalist campaign, he concentrated on devices to liberate the colonised by battling against the colonisers. It was, therefore, a service to humanity. His contributions in the weeklies, Karmayogin and Bande Mataram, are illustrative here. Before his final return to Bengal in 1893, he regularly wrote on many issues of contemporary relevance, as the text shows. By analysing the texts published between 1890 and 1910, the book focuses on the Nationalist Aurobindo who held, as his primary goal, India’s political salvation. On his arrival in Pondicherry, the spiritual or ascetic Aurobindo carved a new narrative for humanity as a whole. So, intellectually, there was a thread between Aurobindo before 1910 and in the post-1910 period. His primary concern was to work for human well-being. Inevitable here is one question: Were there insights to argue that there was an intellectual continuity between these two strikingly contrasting phases of his search for adequate means of human betterment? The answer does not seem to be difficult since a careful analysis of Aurobindo’s codified texts reveals that the spiritual responses that he articulated in his Pondicherry phase had their roots in many of the writings that Karmayogin and Bande Mataram included before he disappeared from the Nationalist scene in 1910. In order to comprehend the Nationalist Aurobindo with reference to the existent socio-economic and politico-cultural context and also the intellectual insights that he absorbed while developing and also defending his distinct point of view, the book, as the chapters show, concentrates on those relevant written texts within a broad conceptual framework. Drawn on the Platonic dictum, every philosopher is a child of his time—the text is an elaboration of what provoked him to delve into issues as he did so long as he was an active participant in the Nationalist movement. Broadly speaking, there were three important aspects of Aurobindo’s thoughts which figured prominently in his written texts which are available in the public domain. First, as a hardcore Nationalist, it does not require it to be said that he was against colonialism. Many of the ideas that he developed in support of his argument were reverberated by later Nationalists, including Gandhi, and also humanists like Rabindranath Tagore. As the text demonstrates, he charged the British rulers of being deviant from the core principles of the philosophy of Enlightenment which also confirms that like his predecessors, he also believed that what Edmund Burke mentioned in the House of Lords in 1763 while endorsing Warren Hastings’ impeachment was conveniently bypassed by the rulers in India. It was hypocrisy on the part of the colonisers, which did not seem unusual as they were authorised to govern with an iron fist to seemingly ‘civilize

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the barbarians’. Despite having exposed the discrepancies between what the policymakers in Britain mentioned as their politico-ideological objectives in India and how their representatives behaved as rulers, he did not appear to have been disillusioned because he believed that ‘they are devoid of any great or generous emotion, and … their conduct is that of a small coterie of masters surrounded by a notion of Helots, … with the narrow hearts and commercial habit of mind peculiar to that sort of people’.5 The core of the above argument is a reverberation of what R.C. Dutt and later Dadabhai Naoroji elaborated in The Economic History of India (1893) and Poverty and Un-British Rule in India (1901) respectively. Both of them were critical of British rule in view of following policies directed for partisan gains at the cost of millions of the ruled in India. It was not only contrary to the principles on which British civilisation rested but also challenged humanity as a whole. Naoroji thus argued that ‘the British people stand charged with the blood of the perishing millions and starvation of scores of millions’.6 In a similar tone, Tagore, in his essay, Crisis in Civilization (1941), and Gandhi, in his booklet, Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule (1909), who were British Loyalists at the outset of their public careers, also questioned colonial governance since it, by bypassing humanistic concerns, privileged narrow commercial gains. The second aspect of his intellectual treatise dwells on his fierce critique of the Moderates of the Indian National Congress. His attack was twofold: on the one hand, as elaborated in the text, he was vehemently opposed to the methods of petition, prayer and protest as they were inadequate to ensure human betterment in a colony. Like his other colleagues, he was also persuaded to believe that the Moderate means were nothing but a design of appeasement of the rulers and hence it was futile in so far as protecting the millions of hapless Indians. As a karmayogi, Aurobindo also questioned the Congress policy of ignoring ‘the proletariat’ or the poor. By insisting that ‘the awakening of the masses from their ignorance and misery is entirely unimportant and any expenditure of energy in that direction is entirely premature’, he asserted that ‘our first and holiest duty [is] the elevation and enlightenment of the proletariat’.7 The idea was novel when it was propounded by Aurobindo in the late 19th century although in the Gandhian phase of Indian nationalism, the Congress was convinced that only by involving the masses, India’s political freedom was attainable. So, one is thus persuaded to argue that Aurobindo evolved a unique model by generating a legitimate space for the masses in the struggle against colonialism which fully blossomed once Gandhi became prominent in India’s campaign for freedom. The third critical aspect of Aurobindo’s politico-ideological priorities was his concern for organising the masses for the cause. Besides mentally

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preparing the participants by delving into issues of national importance, he also took upon himself the responsibility of mobilising the youths for the armed struggle against the British. As is well known, there were two organisations, Jugantor and Anushilan Samiti, which resorted to violence on many occasions, especially during the 1905–1908 Swadeshi campaign, and Aurobindo was reported to have encouraged those associated with these organisations as per the government inputs.8 Simultaneously, with the encouragement of these political outfits, he was also of the opinion that no revolutionary movement would succeed unless it was complemented by mass support. His biographer, Lizelle Raymond, captured his ideas by stating that it was Aurobindo who always insisted that the revolutionary movement in Bengal had no future unless it was supported ‘spontaneously by the people who also realized that the meaningful solution of their socio-economic problems was contingent on the overthrow of the British rule from India’.9 Core in this contention are two significant points which are critical to understand Aurobindo as a Nationalist: on the one hand, it is clear that he did not seem to have paid much attention to the means which became so important for Gandhi, as the later phase of the Indian Nationalist campaign witnessed. On the other hand, he was also persuaded to believe that without mass participation, India’s struggle for emancipation was unlikely to succeed which also confirms that he was much ahead of his age since none of his Nationalist colleagues was inclined to endorse that mass support was essential for an effective attack on the British. Aurobindo’s claims were thus a watershed in Indian nationalism for they created a space for views opposed to the Moderate means of nationalism and also highlighted the importance of mass mobilisation for the cause. He was, in other words, a pioneer in India’s Nationalist thought because (a) his ideas were a jolt to the established Nationalist concerns, primarily of the Moderates, and (b) they also carved a new narrative, though in its incipient stage, emphasising the critical role of the masses in a political struggle against the oppressors. Given the distinctive feature of his ideational preferences, there is no denying that Aurobindo was heavily influenced by Vivekananda (1863– 1902), an ascetic who conceptualised service to humanity as service to God. Fundamental here is the argument that with one’s care of human beings, one was closer to divinity which further means that he was not exactly inclined towards worship in temples or institutionalised forms of worship. Aurobindo’s insistence on service to humanity had imprints of the views that Vivekananda upheld by suggesting that ‘those who serve humanity actually serve God’. Two ideas are critical here: on the one hand, human beings remained the core and the concern for humanity remained integrally connected with their philosophical

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dispositions. Linked with this was, on the other hand, their exhortation for service to the poor. What deterred the Indians from fulfilling their objective was the hiatus between words and deeds which was explicitly stated when he mentioned that we have brains, but no hands, we have the doctrine of Vedanta, but we have not the power to reduce it into practice. In our books, there is the doctrine of universal equality, but in work, we make great distinctions. It was in India that unselfish and disinterested work of the most exalted type was preached, but in practice, we are awfully cruel, awfully heartless – unable to think of anything besides our own mass-of-flesh bodies.10

A change in perception is visible here since Vivekananda identified the sources of weaknesses that inhibited Indians from rising as a well-knit collectivity, primarily because of division around many socio-economic and politico-cultural axes. Inherent were some of the well-nurtured ideas segregating human beings from one another by deliberately constructing boundaries. So long as they remained as they were, it was difficult, if not impossible, to generate bonhomie among Indians. By dissociating them from the poor and uneducated masses, the Moderates failed to appreciate the message that no Nationalist campaign succeeded simply by making verbose statements once a year during the annual session of the Indian National Congress. The Revolutionary Nationalists, having realised the limitations of seasonal opposition by the Nationalists, not only criticised their predecessors but also evolved a new model of anti-British offensive, especially in the wake of the 1905–1908 Swadeshi Movement in Bengal. Primary to the new model was a concerted attempt to associate the masses in the struggle against forces assisting contrarian values to establish roots. As a humanist to the core, Aurobindo while highlighting the critical importance of the masses in combatting the evil designs of a select group of individuals, can be said to have been drawn to Vivekananda who emphatically declared that India will awake again, if anyone could love with all his heart the people of the country – bereft of the grace of affluence, of blasted fortune, … downtrodden, ever-starved, quarrelsome and envious. Then only will India awake, when hundreds of large-hearted men and women giving up all desires of enjoying the luxuries of life, will long and exert themselves to their utmost for the well-being of the millions of their countrymen who are gradually sinking lower and lower in the vortex of destitution and ignorance. (87)

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The task that Vivekananda sought to accomplish was to prepare the base for a new kind of nationalism to flourish; it was a nationalism which had no space for socio-cultural discrimination or prejudices; it was a nationalism in which fraternity was integral to humanity; it was a nationalism which impeded compartmentalising human beings in terms of their identities. In his novel, Gora (1910), Rabindranath Tagore reiterated the idea when Gora, the protagonist in the narrative, was intrigued when he was asked to accept the hospitality of a Brahmin, Madhav Chattujee, given his caste identity in preference to that of a Hindu barber family as it was contrary to the established sociocultural practices. Aurobindo’s forceful argument for mobilising the masses irrespective of caste, religion and ethnicity was rooted in how Vivekananda conceived of the idea of India; it was not a divided India, but one that was united despite socio-cultural diversity. What perhaps prevailed was a civilisational ethos that cemented a bonhomie among the socio-culturally disparate Indians. In view of the compatibility of ideas between Vivekananda and Aurobindo, it is fair to argue that Aurobindo’s activism and Vivekananda’s spiritualism coalesced to form a powerful politico-ideological tool at a juncture of India’s Nationalist history when the Moderate phase lost its appeal and revolutionary nationalism gained precedence.

II Given the multidimensional character of Aurobindo’s politico-ideological and socio-cultural concerns, it is difficult to capture his ideas in any of the derivative modes of thinking. The activist phase of his life was over in 1910 when he dissociated himself from the Nationalist campaign. This is partly correct because, in Pondicherry, he began another phase of his life which was anything but sterile. For him, it was a search for spiritual salvation. Similarly, when he was involved in the Nationalist campaign, was he just an activist like his fellow Revolutionary Nationalists? The answer does not seem to be ambiguous since he also felt that one’s spiritual strength was complementary to one’s determination to fight for a cause regardless of consequences. For accomplishing a goal what was thus required, argued Aurobindo, was a combination of spiritual with physical strength. In his perception, contemporary Bengalis lacked both in the colonial context. Hence, Aurobindo insisted on acquiring strength, physical, moral and spiritual. In his words, the deeper we look, the more we shall be convinced that the one thing wanting, which we must strive to acquire before all others, is

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strength – strength physical, mental, strength moral, and above all strength spiritual which [is] the one inexhaustible and imperishable source of all others. If we have strength everything will be added to us easily and naturally. In the absence of strength, we are like men who have hands but cannot seize or strike, who have feet but cannot run.11

There are three ideas which Aurobindo articulated by making the aforementioned caustic remark: first, he was disheartened since Indians hardly internalised the concerns for liberating their motherland; presumably, they were too scared to take head-on the colonial authority. Second, his purpose was to ignite the political zeal to participate in the ongoing struggle for emancipation. Third, he also realised that unless one had moral and spiritual strength, one was likely to be restrained from apprehending the trouble that one had to confront while challenging evil forces. If this argument is taken a little further, one may find out the roots of why it was so. Prominent among the reasons was certainly the preference of the Bengali youths for clerical jobs in the government and other British firms to ensure a life free from uncertainty. The British rulers succeeded in consolidating a mindset in their favour. With the acceptance of the 1835 Macaulay’s Minutes, which introduced English education in India, the idea not only received acceptance but also struck organic roots in India. So, by defending the need to be strong in all respects, Aurobindo provided a sharp critique of the existing system directed to produce clerks for the British offices. It was a call for reawakening the youth, who, instead of being participants in socio-political transformation, happily abdicated their role to avoid being troubled. Along with this contextual reason, Aurobindo was influenced by Vivekananda’s inspirational role in rejuvenating the youth which he reverberated in his conceptual understanding of why Indian youths failed to rise despite being subject to humiliation at every moment by the rulers. Hence, Vivekananda exhorted that in order to regenerate the youths, what was required to be done was to create a milieu which linked them with the Nationalist activities by which, he did not just mean opposition to the British rule by joining political protests but also generating a mindset opposed to the prevalent sociocultural prejudices. ‘These are the traits,’ argued Vivekananda, which ‘lacking in us … lead to individual and national regeneration.’12 Perhaps, by being convinced, Aurobindo argued that working together for a cause ‘also create[s] a bonhomie among the co-workers [which was] … a steppingstone for building a sense of belongingness to a community’.13 An analytical dissection of this idea reveals that he dealt with the issue both at the micro and macro levels: at the micro level, his concern was to inspire the individual youths to realise that by providing service to

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the colonial government, they became just a stooge in their control; at the macro level, by insisting on the formation of communities, he reiterated the idea that only by being together with the collectivity was one automatically equipped to effectively combat adversaries. Aurobindo was thus a political activist who was also alert to India’s distinctive socio-cultural realities. He was not an ordinary Revolutionary Nationalist like his colleagues in the Revolutionary Nationalist outfits, Jugantor or Anushilan Samiti since, for him, a successful attack on the alien rule was possible through an organised campaign which was possible once Indians joined hands together, regardless of religious and cultural differences. In this sense, he laid the foundation for the Gandhian model of Nationalist resistance which drew on togetherness regardless of different social, economic, cultural and political axes. As he was in favour of a unified opposition against colonial subjugation, which was significantly constrained given the rise of Muslims as an independent political entity in the wake of the Swadeshi Movement, he also realised that for the Nationalist campaign to succeed, communal differences needed to be meaningfully bridged. It is true that he drew on the ancient Hindu texts, Vedas, Upanishads and also the Bhagavad Gita, which he reinterpreted as sources of wisdom and inspiration. Underplaying that they were Hindu texts, Aurobindo always highlighted how they acted as sources of inspiration for those fighting the battle for political emancipation. The idea was resorted to by Rabindranath Tagore and Gandhi when they became prominent in the public domain. That it did not act the way they expected was proved by the later historical development which culminated in the dismemberment of India into two independent nations, India and Pakistan, in 1947. For an analyst, what is thus challenging was to locate the reasons for the Nationalist failure to keep the Muslims within the fold of Gandhi’s panIndian political platform. It would be historically inaccurate to attribute the alienation of the Muslims from the mainstream Nationalist struggle to Gandhi’s inability to retain them since the process started long before he arrived on India’s political scene. If a fair scan of India’s Nationalist struggle since the formation of the Indian National Congress in 1885 is made, one is likely to draw some meaningful generalisations. Aside from the archival resources, literary sources were indicative of the failure of the mainstream Nationalists to generate fraternity between Hindus and Muslims. For instance, Rabindranath Tagore’s Ghare Baire (1916) and Gora (1910) are replete with descriptions of how the two communities fell apart, due, primarily to the deliberately nurtured socio-cultural distance of the economically well-off Hindus, especially in rural Bengal. Suffice it to say here that Sandip, the Swadeshi leader, was unable to comprehend the adverse politico-ideological consequences of the

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Hindu–Muslim schism despite contrarian input by his friend, Nikhilesh who, while interacting with his subjects in his estate, the majority of whom were Muslims, understood how the Hinduised campaign against the first partition of Bengal separated many Nationalist Muslims from the mainstream political endeavour. Gora was also a reiteration of the same concern. It was evident when Gora came to the village and saw how the Hindu–Muslim divide and caste segregation acted as deterrents towards building communal amity. Given the distinctive ideational inclination for brotherhood regardless of socio-cultural identities to strike roots, Aurobindo stood out among the Revolutionary Nationalists. It is true that the weeklies that he edited had Hinduised titles, Karmayogin and Bande Mataram; nonetheless, the issues that he discussed were applicable to all, irrespective of their caste or religious affiliations. Etymologically, a karmayogi is one who is a devout worker, committed to the assigned duty like a yogi with telescopic attention to the duties s/he is asked to perform. Bandemataram was a Nationalist slogan which became highly popular during the Swadeshi Movement among all those opposed to the first partition of Bengal as it was an outcome of the British divideand-rule strategy. Unlike his compatriot, Bal Gangadhar Tilak started the Shivaji festival or Ganapati festival which were not only typically invocations of Hindu symbols but also articulated an implicit message that they were meant to organise Hindus only; it had an adverse impact in Bengal, and the local Muslim leadership succeeded in persuading many of its supporters who joined the Swadeshi activists to dissociate. With the formation of the Muslim League in 1906, the division was institutionalised and, as history shows, one of the significant sources of M.A. Jinnah’s supporters for a two-nation theory came from Bengal. It did not also seem surprising that one of the most popular leaders of Bengali Muslims, Fazlul Haq (1873–1962), proposed that the 1940 Lahore resolution be the cornerstone of the campaign for a separate Muslim state following the 1947 transfer of power. Aurobindo was thus a class apart at least from the point of view of his ideational preferences. One of the reasons was certainly linked with his upbringing in Bengal where Muslims also constituted an important segment of Bengal’s demography. As the available historical evidence displays and was supported by many of the prominent Bengali thinkers, including Rabindranath Tagore, there were hardly serious attempts to bridge the socio-cultural distance between Hindus and Muslims in Bengal; Muslims remained backward for a complex set of reasons which never received serious attention from either the local Congress leadership or from the British until M.A. Jinnah emerged as a spokesperson for the Muslims. What was surprising was that despite the adverse impact of

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Muslim alienation from the mainstream Nationalist campaign during the Swadeshi Movement, Aurobindo was unable to gauge the inherent limitations of the Nationalist design. It does not seem unusual if it is judged in the historical context. A careful scan of the available literature and the archival resources reveals that till the Muslims became a force at the pan-Indian level, none of the Nationalists paid adequate attention to the communal schism. Hence, it is not a matter of surprise that instead of the Hindu–Muslim chasm, the Nationalist leaders expressed their concern for caste segregation or the difference between the rich and poor. Even when the Hindu–Muslim relations were discussed in the Nationalist forum, it was articulated in class terms which means that the differences between them were not based on their exclusive religious identities, but on their being rich or poor. In other words, as the class character of Hindus and Muslims differed radically, religious identities became a meaningful criterion in conceptually comprehending the segregation between these communities: the poor Muslims remained neglected as the rich Hindus controlled the authority. Aurobindo ushered in a new era of Indian nationalism. Despite being one of the founders of revolutionary nationalism, he differently conceptualised the anti-British campaign by suggesting that only by collectively opposing the Raj, was it possible for the Nationalists to accomplish the politico-ideological objectives. Aurobindo also stood out long before the Congress’ adoption of the independence resolution in the 1929 Lahore Congress. He, in his regular columns in Bande Mataram, not only argued for Purna Swaraj but also devised a design for its achievement. By consistently arguing for independence, he also created a space for the Nationalist voice to spread across India. His endeavour to involve the people was also a new initiative that blossomed fully once Gandhi became an unassailable leader of the freedom struggle. So, a Nationalist leader with tremendous foresight, Aurobindo can be said to have regenerated the moribund nationalism of the Moderate phase. In conceptual terms, nationalism in his perception was inspiration, provided it was espoused by all. As is well known, the Moderates failed to create momentum for the Nationalists since the counter-offensive was an exclusive domain largely of the lawyers; the Congress annual sessions were platforms for ventilating grievances which were neither embarrassing for the ruler nor were potentially threatening to the continuity of the empire. Opposed to this mode of Nationalist politics, Aurobindo, along with his equally committed colleagues, rearticulated nationalism in a completely different conceptual format. Nonetheless, when they evolved their economic agenda, the Revolutionary Nationalists expressed their gratitude to the Moderates for having developed powerful arguments against the Raj. For instance,

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Aurobindo admitted that both R.C. Dutt and Dadabhai Naoroji helped them understand the nature of exploitation by the empire. In fact, while arguing for boycotts as an effective mechanism for weakening the British grip over India, Aurobindo referred to the contribution of both of them. According to him, the explanation of Dutt and Naoroji was of great support to him when he conceptually defended the boycott of British goods. While dwelling on the critical contribution of Dutt, he thus mentioned that by bringing in the public domain ‘the damning story of England’s commercial and financial dealings with India, [he doubted] … whether the public mind would have been ready for boycott’.14 His colleague, Bipin Chandra Pal, went a step further: while being appreciative of the Moderates’ contribution by saying that despite being politically loyal, the Moderate thinkers, especially R.C. Dutt and Dadabhai Naoroji, ‘cut at the roots of the empire they considered Providential – they were [thus] the fountain-heads of disloyalty’.15 In fact, it dawned on the Revolutionary Nationalists that boycott was one of the most effective tools for harming the British commercial interests, not merely because of the adverse economic consequences on the British industrialists but it also put in place that Indians were strong enough to meaningfully challenge the British hegemony by depriving them of an important source of revenue for the colonisers. For Aurobindo, the Swadeshi agenda of boycott attracted many since it was realised that the British Raj was not invincible which was an emotional victory for the Nationalists. In their zealous support for boycotts, the Revolutionary Nationalists, however, ignored the sufferings that the poor Bengalis, both Hindus and Muslims, underwent by forcibly imposing boycotts on them. As the homespun clothes were expensive compared to machineproduced clothes, the latter became very popular because they were affordable. Once it was forced on the poor, boycott became a source of consternation which appeared to have received no attention from the Swadeshi activists. In fact, it was one of the factors which alienated the Muslims from the Nationalist campaign because they were asked to participate against their will in the bonfire of foreign clothes which they preferred as they were cheap. Rabindranath Tagore who was an enthusiastic supporter of the Swadeshi Movement at the outset also resented when the Swadeshi leaders paid no attention to his suggestion when he strongly argued for the withdrawal of forcible boycott as it created a strong base for the Congress opponents. Illustrative here is his novel, Ghare Baire, which elaborated Tagore’s principal arguments vis-à-vis boycott. One of the protagonists, Nikhilesh, conveyed his approach to boycott by insisting that it should not be imposed on the poor Hindus and Muslims, whereas Sandip, the Swadeshi leader, supported the agenda despite having understood that it was certain

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to alienate the poor. The reasons are not difficult to find. On the one hand, the Swadeshi insistence on boycott was reflective of a feature of Nationalist intervention, namely, due to its limited expanse, the idea that the alienation of the majority had a far-reaching effect on the campaign was conveniently ignored. On the other, like the Moderates, the participants in the Swadeshi campaign had also a narrow social base due, largely to the fact, that it was confined to the middle-class educated Hindus who did not seem to have completely abdicated socio-cultural prejudices against the Muslims and untouchables. Nonetheless, it is fair to argue that contrary to the Moderates, the Revolutionary Nationalists expanded the Nationalist campaign in many districts of Bengal, which was not the case in the earlier Nationalist phase. In this sense, the mass politics that evolved with the rise of Gandhi and non-violent resistance saw its beginning at the behest of revolutionary nationalism. Being one of the chief architects of this brand of Nationalist counterattack, Aurobindo stood out not only by evolving persuasive arguments defending revolutionary nationalism but also as one of the most vocal supporters seeking to integrate the masses with the anti-British struggle.

III Given the politico-ideological preferences that Aurobindo articulated at a particular juncture of colonialism in India, it can be persuasively argued that he was, at the same time, a child of his time and also one who surpassed the historical context which also acted decisively in shaping his ideational universe. In other words, it is thus fair to suggest that he was a political thinker with transcendental appeal. As an explanation, two reasons can be cited: on the one hand, in view of his exposure to multiple ideas, both in India and England, it does not seem unusual that he was a product of conceptually compatible ideas since constitutional liberalism remained predominant in his place of birth and that of the colonisers. Once in England, he was exposed to ideas which were not exactly tilted towards the constitutional methods of resistance to the oppressors. His appreciation for the Japanese Samurai tradition and also the Irish endeavour for emancipation by resorting to violence, if necessary, are illustrative of his attitude. What is, however, striking is the fact that despite being raised in a family that was determined to make him an Englishman par excellence, he did not seem to have appreciated the effort that his parents and other family members made although he was taken to England at the tender age of seven as his father always believed that the British culture was superior. His parents’ efforts did not seem to have yielded

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results as he never accepted the British way of life in preference to what he practised as a Bengali. Nonetheless, what impressed him was a relatively free political environment in which debates on ideas, including those contrary to constitutional liberalism, were allowed. Here, probably lies the root of the conceptualisation of revolutionary nationalism which was a creative amalgamation of constitutional devices with revolutionary practices which also endorsed violence for realising the goal. He thus represented a watershed in Indian Nationalist thinking because, despite being nurtured in Moderate Nationalist politics, he not only meaningfully challenged constitutional means but also designed an alternative which did not exclude violence. As seen during the Swadeshi Movement, the activists resorted to peaceful protests and simultaneously undertook violent resistance when it was necessary. Being critical of the ways the campaign was organised, Tagore appeared to have been a little disappointed, especially due to the stringent application of boycott of foreign clothes as it adversely affected the poor which Tagore graphically illustrated in many of his critical essays and novels. Aurobindo remained steadfastly committed to the Swadeshi agenda, and since the boycott was adopted as a device to harm British commercial interests, he did not oppose it to the extent his opponents had expected. That he upheld the boycott as it was a collective decision meant that he was both convinced of its effectiveness and also strongly felt that it was necessary for the attainment of their goal, namely the annulment of the first partition of Bengal. Regardless of criticism, there is no denying that the Swadeshi campaign was a break with the past as the Nationalists plunged into action which also witnessed an increasing number of participants from various walks of life in the movement. It was thus qualitatively a different kind of anti-British agitation in contrast with the erstwhile Moderate nationalism. Besides having ushered in a new era of Nationalist resistance, the Swadeshi Movement brought into the public domain many of the Revolutionary Nationalists who so far remained peripheral in anti-British agitation. That revolutionary nationalism gained momentum with the decline of the importance of the Moderates also underlined that it carved a space in the Indian Nationalist campaign. Being one of the strong votaries of a new brand of Nationalist intervention, Aurobindo stood out not merely as a participant but also as a theoretician who justified revolutionary nationalism as a far more effective tool for pursuing the Nationalist cause amid adversaries. A careful scan of Aurobindo’s writings demonstrates that he was one of the earliest Nationalist thinkers who understood that Hindu– Muslim discord was one of the serious impediments to weaving

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together disparate socio-cultural groups into one collectivity. He was also opposed to the political adjustment with the Muslim leadership to address communal animosity at the grassroots. It was evident when he mentioned that ‘Hindu-Mahomedan unity cannot be effected by political adjustments or Congress flatteries. It must be sought deeper down, in the heart and the mind, for where the causes of disunion are’.16 The aim was to develop an emotional bond between people with different religious identities which were based on the accident of birth. Reiterating Aurobindo’s concerns, Tagore, in his 1907 speech in the Pabna session of the Bengal Provincial Congress, also mentioned that so long as Muslims were denied their legitimate due, it was difficult, if not impossible to develop ‘an emotional chord between them and their Hindu counterparts’.17 It was a deterrent to ‘the emergence of brotherhood between the two communities, the lack of which enabled the foreign rulers to ensure gain for them’ (700).18 Here, Aurobindo insisted on universal humanism long before it was recognised as integral to human civilisation by many of the later Nationalist thinkers, including Tagore and Gandhi. Being aware that the chasm between these two communities was a source of consternation, Aurobindo suggested that it was the responsibility of the Hindu to diffuse the misgivings among the Muslim brothers by accepting them as integral to India. It was possible when we shall make it a main part of our work to place Mahomed and Islam in a new light before our [brethren] to spread juster (sic) views of Mahomedan history and civilization, to appreciate the Musulman’s place in our national development and the means of harmonizing his communal life with our own, ignoring the difficulties that stand in our way but making the most of the possibilities of brotherhood and mutual understanding. [Furthermore, he also argued that] intellectual sympathy can only draw together, the sympathy of the heart can alone unite [and] … the one is a good preparation for the other.19

Emphatic here was the need for generating bonhomie between Hindus and Muslims which hardly received adequate attention in the Nationalist discourse in the Moderate and early Revolutionary Nationalist phases. It was Aurobindo who drew the Nationalist attention to the issue that loomed large as the Nationalist campaign progressed. Among his Revolutionary Nationalist colleagues, Aurobindo was perhaps a lone voice which was reverberated in Tagore’s writings. For Tagore, the idea that Muslims were as critical to his idea of India as their Hindu counterparts dawned on him when he travelled around the areas in East Bengal where Muslims were demographically preponderant. His

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belief in constitutional liberalism reinforced that given the fact that Muslims were an important segment of Bengal’s population, it was politically suicidal if they were denied their legitimate socio-cultural space. Opposed to the constructed schism between these two major communities in Bengal, he evolved a mechanism directed to erase the differences. As per him, mere paternalistic concerns for the Muslims who were socio-culturally peripheral as well was not an effective design to develop a ‘union of hearts’; what was required was to reverse the prevalent mindset supportive of discrimination against them. There are two aspects of his argument, it seems. On the one hand, he appeared to have criticised the patronising attitude of the Hindu zamindars in East Bengal in particular. One may surmise that Tagore perhaps had in mind the schemes that he developed and Nikhilesh in Ghare Baire talked about to address the Muslim alienation from the Hindu-centric Swadeshi agenda. By insisting on the union of hearts, he foresaw what C.R. Das expressed in his politico-ideological preferences and also what B.R. Ambedkar articulated by his conceptual design of ‘social endosmosis’, a design which also upheld the concern for the change of heart of the caste Hindus vis-à-vis the untouchables. The core point here is that long before Muslims became an important factor in the Nationalist campaign, Aurobindo, by postulating significant conceptual ideas, devised a meaningful design to organise a panIndian Nationalist movement in a disparate society like ours. It was an astute formula that Gandhi adopted while spearheading the antiBritish counter-offensive since he also strongly believed that without bonhomie among socio-culturally separate communities, the struggle for emancipation could never be as strong as was expected. Aurobindo’s insistence on the change of heart is also a reinforcement of the argument that despite being drawn largely on indigenous discourses, he expressed in opposition to many of his orthodox compatriots in the Nationalist campaign his views which gradually gained acceptance in the political domain. Not only was his conceptualisation of the union of hearts directed to unite the Muslims who were alienated from the mainstream nationalism during the Swadeshi campaign by being charged by them as ideologically Hindu-centric but also the poor Hindus who were left being by being untouchables. Based on existential experiences, Aurobindo developed a model that was a stepping stone towards articulating those ideas which the later Nationalists evolved to counter the campaign of separating the Muslims and untouchables from the mainstream anti-British agitation.20 Conceptually, Aurobindo’s discourses were a transition in Nationalist politics and also laid out a foundation of the new conceptual Nationalist framework. In order to understand the processes that led

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him to reconceptualize the Nationalist discourse, one is reminded of his role as a teacher in Baroda College after his return from England in 1893. Besides being a source of livelihood, he accepted the assignment since he also believed that education was an important aspect of the development of human minds. Hence, he also felt that by transmitting indigenous values and knowledge, one had an opportunity to take part in this process. In two ways, his role served the Nationalist cause: on the one hand, by evolving the courses tuned to the Nationalist concerns, he was in a position to transmit them formally to the pupil. In doing so, he, on the other, not only developed a critique of English education which was tuned to prepare students for sustaining colonial rule but also evolved an alternative design of imparting education contrary to the rootless colonial mode. To conclude, besides delving into the ideas of the Nationalist Aurobindo, the text also questions the conventional belief of the spiritual Aurobindo that evolved once he left Bengal in 1910 for Pondicherry. It was radically different from his earlier incarnation: first, a thorough scan of the writings of Aurobindo between 1893 and 1910 reveals that his primary concern was to unearth indigenous discourses, especially the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads as he believed that, by being contextual, they had, in themselves, well-built conceptual frameworks of analysis which were useful to understand contemporary India. For instance, he defended the Gita in many of the essays he published in Karmayogin and Bande Mataram. His book, Essays on the Gita (1950), contains many of these texts; furthermore, the idea that he floated in the earlier essay also figured in this book which he wrote in his spiritual phase. Second, his widely read texts, The Life Divine (1919) and Savitri (1940), are responses to the questions that he raised in what he wrote in the Nationalist phase of his life. In a nutshell, both these texts are an aspiration for taking humanity to a level of divinity on the basis of imbibing values questioning divisions among human beings as merely constructed for partisan aims and objectives. Furthermore, The Life Divine articulates processes of spiritual evolution of the transformation of human beings from a mental into a spiritual being with the advent of a divine life on earth. Savitri is a long poem in blank verse based on Aurobindo’s understanding of the epic Mahabharata which, he argued, revolves around the transcendence of human beings as the consummation of terrestrial evolution and the emergence of an immortal supramental gnostic race on earth. Intrinsic here is the point that the later writings were also directed to ensure the well-being of humanity. In the Nationalist phase, he critically evaluated colonialism and also the restraining socio-cultural prejudices as impediments towards human progress. There is no denying that these issues bothered

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him most, as the essays in these two weeklies suggest. Although he left Nationalist politics in 1910, he continued to serve humanity when he adopted a different role away from the Nationalist activities. Fundamental to his conceptual search was his concern for humanity as a whole which was also the objective of Gandhi and Tagore since they also believed in universal humanism, and by raising their voice against endeavours towards constricting humanity, they can be said to have endorsed Aurobindo’s efforts. The conceptual framework in which he comprehended nationalism in India continued to remain meaningful even when he appeared to have completely shifted his attention to spiritualism in his sojourn in Pondicherry. Illustrative here was his Independence Message on 15 August 1947. There are three critical points that he referred to while articulating what he felt following India’s political liberation: first, he was unhappy that independence was marred by India’s partition into two independent countries, India and Pakistan, on the basis of Muslims and Hindus being identified as ‘two-nations’. As the book shows, this was an area of his concern which he articulated in many of the published essays. What caused the dismemberment of India was the failure to unify hearts largely due to the Congress’ inability to meaningfully address the reasons for Hindu and Muslim socio-cultural and political estrangement. Second, India’s partition also reinforced the fact that mankind remained divided. Despite having attempted to inculcate universal humanism by many of the Nationalist thinkers, India’s vivisection also established the claim that it was a distant goal. Mere Nationalist urge was not adequate; what was required, Aurobindo felt, was to build a supra-national mentality to contribute to its growth and consolidation, cutting across boundaries around many socio-cultural and politico-economic axes. Finally, he also affirmed that, notwithstanding apparently insurmountable difficulties, human endeavour would take humanity to divinity, given the presence of the Supreme Will. In spite of the division among human beings which India’s partition exemplified, a dream of individual perfection and a perfect society seemed to have been ingrained in the forward-looking minds in the East and West.21 The idea was novel since it had its root in the urge for transforming individual consciousness, which Aurobindo subscribed to when he was one of the prominent thinkers defending India’s political emancipation along with the exposition of what impaired India’s rise as a well-knit collectivity due to well-entrenched socio-cultural prejudices. Despite not having dealt with the politico-ideological preferences that Aurobindo had during his spiritual phase (1910–1950), the book, by being supportive of the argument that there was a continuity in his thinking, not only challenges the conventional wisdom but also generates intellectual curiosity to explore an area of indigenous thoughts to

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champion the claim that derivative ideas were as important as contextual inputs or insights. Being deviant from the Platonic dictum that every philosopher is a child of his time, the book also justifies that it is not always so since a philosopher/thinker also surpasses the existential limitations by articulating newer ideas or rearticulating the available ideas differently. Aurobindo certainly belonged to that category, along with many of his colleagues who also felt that socio-cultural transformation (which he articulated as a change in individual consciousness) was as important as political emancipation since they were dialectically interconnected. From this point of view, his ideas ushered in a new era of Nationalist thoughts with wider implications for three reasons: frst, unlike his predecessors, particularly the Moderates, he focused on socio-cultural issues since he realised that they meaningfully addressed the purpose of building India as a civilisational collectivity. Second, by being favourably disposed towards Hindu–Muslim amity by generating the urge for the unity of hearts, he put in place an important politico-ideological concern that hardly received adequate attention in the Nationalist discourses. Finally, by insisting on the importance of indigenous discourses, especially the Vedas, Upanishads and epics, Ramayana and Mahabharata, as important sources of wisdom, he, along with his colleagues, especially those inspired by Rammohun Roy (1773–1833) who endeavoured to evolve deistic Hinduism in the early part of the 19th century, created a definite space for them in individual politico-ideological priorities. Aurobindo was not just a Nationalist thinker but a harbinger of an era when nationalism was conceptualised not merely as a political category, but as an endeavour that drew on contextual socio-cultural peculiarities. Hence, the argument that there is a modular form of nationalism as Benedict Anderson offered in his Imagined Communities,22 is neither tenable nor conceptually persuasive in view of the peculiar unfolding of nationalism across the continents. Not just an inspiration to the Nationalists in India, Aurobindo was thus one of the most perceptive thinkers among his compatriots who laid a foundation for developing an alternative mode of Nationalist discourses by being sensitive to the derivative wisdom and contextual discernments.

NOTES Introduction

  1 Rabindranath Tagore. 2008 (rpt). ‘Rammohun Roy’. In The English Writings of Rabindranath Tagore, edited by Nityapriya Ghosh, vol. 4, 576, 577–578. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi.   2 Rabindranath Tagore. 1996 (rpt). ‘Rammohun Roy’. In The English Writings of Rabindranath Tagore, edited by Sisir Kumar Das, vol. 3, 667. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi.   3 Aurobindo Ghose. 1997. ‘The Awakening Soul of India’. In Karmayogin, 26 June 1909, reproduced in The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 8, 61–62. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Trust.   4 Aurobindo Ghose. 2002. ‘The New Nationalism’. In The Collected Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 7 (II), 1111. Pondicherry: Aurobindo Ashram Trust.  5 The complete victory of the Japanese military surprised international observers and transformed the balance of power in both East Asia and Europe. This was the beginning of the rise of Japan as one of the great powers in the world along with other established Western powers. By defeating Russia, Japan also defused the claim that Europeans were too powerful to be defeated by an Asian country. Once Russia was vanquished, the impact was severe, especially inside Russia which was now plagued by regular internal strife; this also meant that the prevalent authority had hardly any support among the people. The resulting disturbances were believed to be one of the major causes of the 1905 revolution leading to the collapse of the anarchic rule in Russia.   6 Rabindranath Tagore. 2016 (rpt). ‘Address’ to the Pabna session of the Bengal Provincial Congress, 1907. In Rabindra Rachanabali, vol. 5, 702. Kolkata: Visva-Bharati Granthan Bhivag.   7 Lajpat Rai’s speech at Lahore, 13 December 1905; cited in Daniel Argov. 1968. Moderates and Extremists in the Indian Nationalist Movement, 1883– 1920, 108. New York: Asia Publishing House.   8 Daniel Argov. 1968. Moderates and Extremists in the Indian Nationalist Movement, 1883–1920. New York: Asia Publishing House, xii.   9 Curzon’s speech at the convocation of Calcutta University, 11 February 1905; available in Lord Curzon Speeches, vol. IV. Calcutta: Government Press of Bengal, 1906, 83. 10 Surendranath Banerjea. 2016 (rpt). A Nation in Making, 1925. Delhi: Rupa, 286. 11 Sumit Sarkar. 2011 (rpt). The Swadeshi Movement in Bengal, 1903–1908, Ranikhet: Permanent Black, 65. 12 Aurobindo Ghose. 2003. Early Cultural Writings, vol. 1. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, 84. 13 Ghose, ‘The Bengal He Lived In’. In Early Cultural Writings, 94.

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14 Rabindranath Tagore. 2006. My Life in My Words, selected and edited with an introduction by Uma Das Gupta. New Delhi: Penguin, 7. 15 Ghose, ‘The Bengal He Lived In’, 94. 16 Aurobindo Ghose, 2003. ‘Our Hope in the Future’. In Early Cultural Writings, vol. 1. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, 119.

Chapter 1: An Ideologue of New Nationalism or Democratic Nationalism

  1 Aurobindo Ghose. 1997. ‘“The Awakening Soul of India”, Karmayogin, 26 June 1090’. In The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 8, 63. Pondicherry: Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Pondicherry.  2 Aurobindo Ghose. 2002. ‘The Bourgeois and the Samurai’, Bande Mataram, reproduced in The Complete works of Sri Aurobindo, 7 (II), 1091. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press.   3 Ghose, ‘The Bourgeois and the Samurai’.   4 For details, David Kopf. 1988. The Brahmo Samaj and the Shaping of the Modern Indian Mind. New Delhi: Archives Publishers Pvt. Ltd.   5 I have elaborated this in my Three Tagores: Dwarkanath, Debendranath and Rabindranath: India in Transition. New Delhi: Sage, 2022.   6 Prominent of the researched monographs is by Daniel Argov who dealt with the phenomenon in his Moderates and Extremists in the Indian Nationalist Movement, 1883–1920 with Special Reference to Surenderanath Banerjea and Lajpat Rai. London: Asia Publishing House, 1968; and also, Sanjay Seth. 1999. ‘Rewriting Histories of Nationalism: The Politics of “Moderate Nationalism” in India, 1870–1905’. The American Historical Review, 104 (1) (February).   7 Bipin Chandra Pal. 1958 (rpt). The Soul of India: A Constructive Study of Indian Thoughts and Ideals. Yugayatri Prakashak, 134.   8 Aurobindo Ghose. 2003. ‘Rishi Bankim Chandra’. In The Collected Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. I, 641. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press.   9 Sugata Bose. 1997. ‘Nation as Mother: Representations and Contestations of “India” in Bengali Literature and Culture’. In Nationalism, Democracy and Development: State and Politics in India, edited by Sugata Bose and Ayesha Jalal, 52. Oxford University Press. 10 Tanika Sarkar. 1987. ‘Nationalist Iconography: Image of Women in 19th Century Bengali Literature’. Economic and Political Weekly (21 November): 2011. 11 Aurobindo Ghose. 2002. ‘The New Nationalism’. In The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 7, 1111. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust. 12 M.K. Gandhi. 2006 (rpt). Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 34. 13 Aurobindo Ghose. 2002. ‘The Heart of Nationalism’. In The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 7 (II), 1110. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press.

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14 Aurobindo Ghose. 1997. ‘Indian Polity’. In The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 20, 384. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press. 15 Aurobindo Ghose. 1997. ‘Indian Polity -2’. In The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 20, 403. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press. 16 Aurobindo Ghose. 1997. ‘Indian Polity -3’. In The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 20, 417. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press. 17 Aurobindo Ghose. 1997. ‘Indian Polity -4’. In The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 20, 433. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press. 18 Aurobindo Ghose. 2006. ‘Autobiographical Note’. Reproduced in The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 36, 83. Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department. 19 I have dealt with 1947 Partition in my Partition of Bengal and Assam: Contours of Freedom, 1932–47, Oxford: Routledge, 2004.

Chapter 2: A Devout Nationalist

  1 Aurobindo Ghose. 1997. ‘To Organize’, Bande Mataram, 10 August 1907, Calcutta. Reproduced in The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vols 6 and 7, 631. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department.  2 Aurobindo Ghose. 1997. ‘New Lamps for Old – I’. Reproduced in The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vols 6 and 7, I, 11. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department.   3 Aurobindo Ghose. 1997. ‘New Lamps for Old – III’. Reproduced in The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vols 6 and 7, 24. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department.   4 Aurobindo Ghose. 1997. ‘New Lamps for Old – IV’. Reproduced in The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vols 6 and 7, 26. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department.   5 Aurobindo Ghose. 1997. ‘New Lamps for Old – V’. Reproduced in The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vols 6 and 7, 38. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department.  6 Aurobindo Ghose. 1997. ‘New Lamps for Old – VII’. Reproduced in The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vols 6 and 7, 46. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department.   7 Aurobindo Ghose. 1997. ‘New Lamps for Old – VIII’. Reproduced in The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vols 6 and 7, 52. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department.   8 Aurobindo Ghose. 1997. ‘Unity: An Open Letter to Those Who Despair Their Country’. Reproduced in The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vols 6 & 7, 68. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department.   9 Ghose, ‘Rishi Bankim Chandra’, 637.

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10 Aurobindo Ghose. 2003. ‘Bal Gangadhar Tilak’. Reproduced in The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 1, 642, 1997. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department. 11 Aurobindo Ghose, 2003. ‘A Great Mind, a Great Soul’. Reproduced in The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 1, 658, 1997. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department. 12 Aurobindo Ghose. 2003 (rpt). ‘Dayananda: The Man and His Work’. Reproduced in The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 1, 661, 1997. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department. 13 Dayananda Saraswati. 1875. ‘Preface’. Satyartha Prakash. Available at: https://www.aryasamajjamnagar.org/satyarth_prakash_eng.htm. (Accessed on 19 December 2023). 14 Romain Rolland. 2010 (23rd rpt). The Life of Ramakrishna. New Delhi: Advaita Ashram, 157–158. 15 V.P. Varma. 2006. Modern Indian Political Thought. Agra: Lakshmi Narain Agarwal, 43–44. 16 Ghose, ‘Dayananda’, 665. 17 ‘Sri Aurobindo, “On Nationalism”’, 483, cited in Jyotirmaya Sharma. 2006. Hindutva: Exploring the Idea of Hindu Nationalism. New Delhi: Penguin, 65. 18 ‘Sri Aurobindo, “On Nationalism”’, 484, cited in Sharma, Hindutva, 66 19 Aurobindo Ghose. 2003. ‘Dayananda and the Veda’. Reproduced in The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. I, 674–675. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department. 20 Aurobindo Ghose. 2002. ‘Welcome to the Prophet of Nationalism’, Bande Mataram, 10 March 1908, Calcutta, in The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. II, 910. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department. 21 R.C. Dutta. 2006 (rpt). The Economic History of India: Under Early British rule, vol. 1, 1902, London: Kegan and Paul. New Delhi: Publication Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, 286. Available at https://archive.org/details/economichistoryo01dutt/ page/n5/mode/2up. (Accessed on 19 December 2023). 22 Dadabhai Naoroji. 2020 (rpt). Poverty and Un-British Rule in India, 1901, London: Swan Sonnenschein, 386. In Dinyar Patel, Naoroji: Pioneer of Indian Nationalism, 223. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 23 ‘Naoroji to George Hamilton (1845–1927), the Secretary of State, 12 October 1900’. In Patel, Naoroji, 226. 24 Jawaharlal Nehru. 1941. Toward Freedom. New York: John Day Company, 270. 25 Aurobindo Ghose. 2003. ‘The Men That Pass’. In The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 1, 676. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department. 26 Lajpat Rai. 1928. Unhappy India. Calcutta: Banna Publishing Co., xiv–xv.

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27 Aurobindo Ghose. 1997. ‘Expediency and Nationalism’. In The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 8, 90–91. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department. 28 Aurobindo Ghose. 1997. ‘The Awakening Soul of India’. In The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 8, 61. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department. 29 Aurobindo Ghose. 1997. ‘Swaraj and the Musulmans’. In The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 8, 31. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department. 30 Aurobindo Ghose. 1997. ‘The Hindu Sabha’. In The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 8, 303–304. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department. 31 Prominent of the researched monographs are (a) Amales Tripathi. 1967. The Extremist Challenge: India between 1890 and 1910. New Delhi: Orient Longman; (b) Daniel Argov. 1968. Moderates and Extremists in the Indian Nationalist Movement, 1883–1920 with Special Reference to Surendranath Banerjea and Lajpat Rai. New York: Asia Publishing House; (c) Durba Ghosh. 2017. Gentlemanly Terrorists: Political Violence and Colonial State in India, 1919–1947. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 32 Aurobindo Ghose. 2002 (rpt). ‘Nationalism and Extremism’, Bande Mataram, 26 April 1907. In The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 6, 353. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department. 33 Aurobindo Ghose. 2002 (rpt). ‘Indian Resurgence and Europe’, Bande Mataram, 14 April 1908. In The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 6, 1040. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department.

Chapter 3: An Innovative Strategist

  1 Emmeline Pankhurst. 1979 (rpt). My Own Story, 1914. New York: Virago Press; Susane Ware. 2019. Why They Marched: Untold Story of the Women Who Fought for the Right to Vote. Cambridge: Belknap Press, an imprint of Harvard University Press.  2 Leo Tolstoy. 2010 (rpt). The Kingdom of God Is Within You. London: Watchmaker Publishing; H.D. Thoreau. Civil Disobedience. 1849. In Aesthetic Papers, edited by Elizabeth P. Peabody. New York: The Picket Line.  3 Aurobindo Ghose. 2002. ‘Our Rulers and Boycott’, Bande Mataram, 7 August 1907. Reproduced in The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 7 (II). Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department.  4 Aurobindo Ghose. 2002. ‘Swadeshi and Boycott’. Reproduced in The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 7 (II), 861. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department.  5 Aurobindo Ghose. 2002. ‘“Swaraj”, Bande Mataram, 18 February 1908’. Reproduced in The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 7 (II), 874. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department.

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 6 David Kopf. 1988. The Brahmo Samaj and the Shaping of the Modern Indian Mind. New Delhi: Archives Publishers Pvt. Ltd.   7 Aurobindo Ghose. 2002. ‘The Meaning of Swaraj’. In The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 7 (II), 833. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department.   8 Aurobindo Ghose. 2002. ‘The Morality of Boycott’. In The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 7 (II), 1117. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department.   9 Aurobindo Ghose, ‘“Indian Resurgence and Europe”, Bande Mataram, 14 April 1908’. Reproduced in The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 7 (II), 1040. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department. 10 Aurobindo Ghose. 2002. ‘“The Life of Nationalism”, Bande Mataram, 16 November 1908’. Reproduced in The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 7 (II), 747–748. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department. 11 Aurobindo Ghose. 2002. ‘“The Effect of Petitionary Politics”, Bande Mataram, 29 May 1907’. Reproduced in The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 7 (II), 459. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department. 12 Aurobindo Ghose. 2002. ‘“The Secret of Swaraj Movement”, Bande Mataram, 29 June 1907’. Reproduced in The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 7 (II), 559. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department. 13 Aurobindo Ghose. 2002. ‘“Repression and Unity”, Bande Mataram, 7 August 1907’. Reproduced in The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 7 (II), 664. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department. 14 Aurobindo Ghose. 2002. ‘“Passive Resistance in France”, Bande Mataram, 29 June 1907’. Reproduced in The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 7 (II), 560. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department. 15 Aurobindo Ghose. 2002. ‘Passive Resistance’. In The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 6 (I), 265. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department. 16 Aurobindo Ghose. 2002. ‘“By the Way”, Bande Mataram, 20 September 1906’. Reproduced in The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 6 (I), 180. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department. 17 Aurobindo Ghose. 2002. ‘“The Writing on the Wall’, Bande Mataram. Reproduced in The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 6 (I), 248. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department. 18 K.D. Verma. 1990. ‘The Social and Political Vision of Sri Aurobindo’. In World Literature in English, 30 (1): 60. 19 Bipin Chandra Pal dealt with this idea in ‘The New Movement’, which was included in his book, Swadeshi and Swaraj, Calcutta: Yugayatri Prakashak, 1954, 117–148. 20 Barbara Southard. 1980. ‘The Political Strategy of Aurobindo Ghose: The Utilization of Hindu Religious Symbolism and the Problem of Political Mobilization in Bengal’. Modern Asian Studies, 14 (3): 375.

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21 Aurobindo Ghose. 2002. ‘New Lamps for Old – IV’. Reproduced in The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 1, 26. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department. 22 Sanjay Seth. 1999. ‘Rewriting Histories of Nationalism: The Politics of “Moderate Nationalism” in India’. The American Historical Review, 104 (1) (February): 115. 23 M.K. Gandhi, 2006 (rpt). Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule Navajivan Publishing House, Ahmedabad, 2006 (reprint), 69. 24 M.K. Gandhi. ‘“The Efficacy of Vows”, Young India, 22 August 1929’. Reproduced in The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 46, 465. 25 M.K. Gandhi, ‘“Love and Satyagraha”, Young India, 27 February 1930’. Reproduced in The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 48, 348. 26 Aurobindo Ghose. 2002. ‘The New Nationalism’. Reproduced in The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 7 (II), 1111. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department. 27 Sugata Bose 2007. ‘The Spirit and Form of an Ethical Polity: A Mediation on Aurobindo’s Thought’, Modern Intellectual History, vol. 4 (1), 2007, 135.

Chapter 4: A Creative Educationist

  1 Rabindranath Tagore. 2016 (rpt). ‘Address’ to the Pabna Session of the Bengal Provincial Congress, 1907. In Rabindra Rachanabali, vol. 5, 696– 713. Kolkata: Visva-Bharati Granthan Bhivag.   2 Prasantakumar Pal. 1990. Rabi Jibani (in Bangla), vol. 5, 404. Kolkata: Ananda Publishers Limited.   3 Tagore, ‘Address’, vol. 16, 351–358.  4 Aurobindo Ghose. 1997. ‘“National Education”, Karmayogin: Political Writings and Speeches, 1909–1910’. In The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 8, 389. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department.   5 John Dewey. 1916. Democracy and Education. New York: Macmillan, 14.  6 Aurobindo Ghose. 2003. ‘Education’. In The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 1, 358. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department.   7 Aurobindo Ghose. 2003. ‘The Brain of India’. In The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 1, 364. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department.   8 Minutes by T.B. Macaulay, 2 February 1835, 6. Available at: http://www. columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00generallinks/macaulay/txt_minute_ education_1835.html (accessed on 30 July 2022).   9 Ghose, ‘Education’, 377. 10 Ghose, ‘Education’, 377. 11 Ghose, ‘The Brain of India’, 368. 12 Aurobindo Ghose. 2003. ‘On Education’. In The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 1, 368. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department. 13 M.K. Gandhi. 2008 (rpt). An Autobiography or the Story of My Experiments with Truth, 194. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House.

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14 Aurobindo Ghose. 2003. ‘The Human Mind’. In The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 1, 383. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department. 15 Aurobindo Ghose. 2003. ‘The Powers of Mind’. In The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 1, 386. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department. 16 This was an idea that Aurobindo developed in his Essays on the Gita, New York: Sri Aurobindo Library, INC, 1950, 30–31. 17 Aurobindo Ghose. 2003. ‘The Moral Nature’. In The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 1, 389. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department. 18 Aurobindo Ghose. 2003. ‘Simultaneous and Successive Teaching’. In The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 1, 393. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department. 19 Aurobindo Ghose. 2003. ‘The Training of the Logical Faculty’. In The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 1, 408–409. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department. 20 Aurobindo Ghose. 2003. ‘Message for National Education Week (1918)’. In The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 1, 412. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department. 21 Aurobindo Ghose. 2003. ‘A Preface on National Education (1920, 1921)’. In The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 1, 420. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department.

Chapter 5: A Spiritual Nationalist

  1 Shruti Kapila and Faisal Devji, ed. 2013. Political Thought in Action: The Bhagavad Gita and Modern India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, xi–xii.   2 Rabindranath Tagore, ‘Institutional Religion’. Reproduced in Nityapriya Ghosh, The English Writings of Rabindranath Tagore, Vol. 4, Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi, 2007, 293–298   3 Kapila and Devji, Political Thought in Action, xiii.   4 Aurobindo Ghose. 1997. ‘Essays on the Gita’. In The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 19. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department, 4.   5 Aurobindo Ghose. 2002. ‘“The Strength of the Idea”, Bande Mataram, 8 June 1907’. In The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 7 (II). Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, 493.   6 Ghose, ‘Essays on the Gita’, 351.   7 Amales Tripathi. 1967. The Extremist Challenge: India between 1890 and 1910. Bombay: Orient Longman. 7.   8 Ghose, ‘Essays on the Gita’, 249.   9 Bal Gangadhar Tilak. 1887. Srimad Bhagavad Gita Rahasya. Poona: Tilak Brothers. 10 Ghose, ‘Essays on the Gita’, 477. 11 Tilak, Srimad Bhagavad Gita Rahasya, 16.

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12 O.P. Kejariwal in his The Asiatic Society of Bengal and the Discovery of India’s Past, (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1988) persuasively dealt with this issue. 13 Mahadev Desai, trans. 1956 (rpt). The Gospel of Selfless Action or the Gita according to Gandhi. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 99.

Conclusion

  1 Aurobindo Ghose. 2002 (rpt). ‘“The Strength of the Idea”, Bande Mataram, 8 June 1907’. Reproduced in The Complete works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 7 (II), 496. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press.   2 Aurobindo Ghose. 1997 (rpt). ‘“Swaraj and the Musulmans”, Karmayogin, 19 June 1909’. Reproduced in The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 8, 31. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press.   3 Aurobindo Ghose. 2003. ‘Bankim, Tilak and Dayananda’. In The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 1, 640–641. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press.   4 Aurobindo Ghose. 2003. ‘Dayananda and the Veda’. In The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 1, 674–675. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press.   5 Aurobindo Ghose. 2002. ‘“New Lamps for Old”, Indu Prakash, no. 5, 21 August 1893’. Reproduced in The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 6 (I), 11–62. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department.   6 Dadabhai Naoroji. 1901. Poverty and Un-British Rule in India. London: Swan Sonnenschein, 386.   7 Ghose, ‘New Lamps for Old’, 11–62.  8 West Bengal State Archives, Calcutta, Government of Bengal, Poll. 516/1905: A Report of Terrorism in Bengal by the Chief Secretary of Bengal, David Carlyle, 22 October 1905.   9 Lizelle Raymond. 1953. The Dedicated: A Biography of Nivedita. New York: The John Day Company, 282. 10 Aurobindo Ghose. 2000 (rpt). Vivekananda: His Call to the Nation. Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama, 86–87. 11 Aurobindo Ghose. 2002. ‘“Editorial”, Bhavani Mandir, Weekly Edition, 1 December 1905, 2’. Reproduced in The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 6 (I), 75–92. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department. 12 Ghose, Vivekananda, 85. 13 Aurobindo Ghose. 2002. ‘“Editorial”, Bhavani Mandir, Weekly Edition, 1 December 1905’, 5. Reproduced in The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 6 (I), 75–92. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department. 14 Ghose, ‘Swadeshi and Boycott’, 840. 15 Bipin Chandra Pal. 1966 (rpt). The Rise and Growth of Economic Nationalism in India. New Delhi: People’s Publishing House, 744–745. 16 ‘Aurobindo and Musulmans’. In The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo (Political Writings and Speeches, 1909–1910), vol. 8, 31. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department, Pondicherry, 1997.

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17 Rabindranath Tagore. 2016 (rpt). ‘Address’ to the Pabna Session of the Bengal Provincial Congress, 1907. 18 In Rabindra Rachanabali, vol. 5, 700. Kolkata: Visva-Bharati Granthan Bhivag. 19 ‘Aurobindo and Musulmans’, 31. 20 I have dealt with this aspect in my The Partition of Bengal and Assam: Contour of Freedom, Oxford: Routledge, 2004. 21 Drawn from the Appendix entitled ‘The Fifteenth August, 1947’, added by Karan Singh in his Prophet of Indian Nationalism: A Study of the Political Thought of Sri Aurobindo Ghose, 1893–1910, London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, London, 1963, 155–157. 22 Benedict Anderson. 1991(rpt). Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES The purpose of these notes is to point out that most of the researched monographs focus on Aurobindo’s spiritual life that began after he left Nationalist politics altogether in 1910 to permanently settle in the French colony, Pondicherry. There are hardly any academic works on Aurobindo’s role as a Nationalist during the period between 1893 and 1910 when he persuasively defended New Nationalism as a plausible alternative to Moderate nationalism. His written texts in Indu Prakash, Karmayogin and Bande Mataram provide many inputs to conceptualise the Nationalist campaign in a new format of understanding. By concentrating on his writings published in the above weeklies, the book is an attempt to comprehend the uniquely textured and conceptually innovative ideas of nationalism, which hardly corresponded with the available Nationalist designs prepared by his erstwhile Moderate colleagues. Aurobindo’s effort was the beginning of an era which saw nationalism in a different prism. Contrary to the constitutional-liberal methods of anti-British agitation, Aurobindo created a milieu in which a completely different voice was raised and also acted decisively in mobilising support for the Nationalist cause. He was also a pioneer of passive resistance as a method for political mobilisation which took a different form with Gandhi’s intervention in the 1920s. In Aurobindo’s perception, passive resistance also included aggressive or active resistance once the perpetrators deviated from being passive, while Gandhi stuck to his pledge of being non-violent regardless of being provoked to the contrary. As Aurobindo was a prolific writer, it is not so difficult to understand his politico-ideological priorities. Broadly speaking, being opposed to Moderate nationalism, he opted for a mode of opposing foreign rule by devising a method contrary to the Moderates. To lay out his politico-ideological priorities, The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo (36 volumes) are adequate not merely in terms of his ideas but also with reference to the context in which his priorities were set out. One-third of these works help conceptualise his politico-ideological vision and the rest is about his spiritualism, although there is a dialectical connection between them which means that the former was also derivative of his later concerns. Karan Singh’s Prophet of Indian Nationalism: A Study of Political Thought of Sri Aurobindo, 1893–1910 (George Allen & Unwin Ltd, London, 1963) is one of the first serious academic interventions in grasping the politico-ideological ideas of Aurobindo although the book raised many critical questions, but was limited in appeal since the style 315

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was highly narrative, devoid of efforts at interrogating any of the broad issues of Indian nationalism. Nonetheless, Karan Singh’s endeavour is worth appreciating because it was, he, who for the first time, dealt with the thoughts of one of the most perceptive thinkers of India’s Nationalist discourses. Before providing a list of useful academic tracts, let me begin with two cautionary remarks: first, no bibliography is exhaustive for obvious reasons; the researchers choose those texts and treatises which are available and also of help in responding to those pertinent questions which are preferred by them. In this case, the purpose is to bring to public attention an aspect of Aurobindo’s thoughts which remain peripheral, presumably because his contribution to spiritualism prevailed over other aspects of his preferences. As a result, an important part of his ideational thought remains hidden. Second, his ideas received attention only in the context of the Swadeshi Movement (1905–1908) given his importance as a Nationalist ideologue then. He was referred to as an appendage to a movement when his politico-ideological priorities continued to be relevant even after he completely left Nationalist politics. Linked with this is another note of caution, namely, he left ideas which also informed Gandhi, to a significant extent, when he built an alternative model of nationalism. For instance, by insisting on spreading the Nationalist organisation beyond the metropolitan cities of Calcutta and Bombay, he actually foresaw the Gandhian model of organising the masses for political freedom. Since there is hardly a quality monograph on this theme, this bibliography entails many texts which are of help in comprehending the context in which Aurobindo’s socio-economic and politico-cultural ideas were articulated. As is well known, Aurobindo’s ideas became pertinent when one phase of nationalism was on its way out and another was likely to reign supreme. It was the era of a decline of a specific type of Nationalist politics and the rise of a relatively belligerent mode of anti-British counter-offensive. Many of his contemporaries noticed the transformation which led to the unfolding of many politico-ideological possibilities in the Nationalist arena. Rabindranath Tagore, in his novel, Ghare Baire (1916), wrote how the Swadeshi campaign brought about radical changes in the complexion of Nationalist politics. Despite being critical of Moderate nationalism, Aurobindo appreciated Dadabhai Naoroji for his text entitled Poverty and Un-British rule in India (1901) and R.C. Dutt for his The Economic History of India (1893) since they helped Aurobindo to meaningfully understand the exploitative nature of colonialism. In the writing of this text, one of the important sources is Rabindranath Tagore’s novels, especially, Gora (1909), Ghare Baire

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317

(1916), Chaturanga (1915) and Char Adhyay (1934) since they brought out the complex interplay of multiple ideological forces in the Nationalist context. It became far more complex with the rise and consolidation of Muslims as a separate unit with completely different politico-ideological preferences. The early part of the 20th century thus witnessed a radical metamorphosis in India’s Nationalist trajectory. On many occasions, Aurobindo endorsed the idea that Tagore put forward although the latter never opted for aggressive nationalism which, he felt, was detrimental to the rise of India as a polity because it was largely Hinduised in its ideological predilections and thus was likely to alienate the Muslims. As history demonstrates, Tagore felt the pulse of the people correctly, and this was evident as the Nationalist campaign progressed. Similarly, Aurobindo differed with Gandhi in regard to his interpretation of the Bhagavad Gita. While the former accepted the Gita as a source of aggressive resistance, Gandhi upheld the Gita’s messages as a set of ideas for building human character immune from partisan interests. To Gandhi, the Gita epitomised those qualities which appeared to have lost salience in the context of the Nationalist struggle; but, to Aurobindo, Krishna’s advice for renunciation was, for instance, meant to inspire the Nationalists to engage in the battle without expectations. The difference between them was fundamental although it is fair to suggest that this transcendental text remains a source of their intellectual sustenance in defending their respective points of view. Aurobindo, however, received support from his New Nationalist colleagues, especially Bal Gangadhar Tilak, who wrote Bhagavad Gita Rahasya (1887) to argue that the text, instead of highlighting spiritualism which many wrongly construed, was one that laid the foundation for a righteous war against evil forces. As the British rule was contrary to basic humanity, the battle that the New Nationalists waged for its discontinuity was apt. In view of the aforementioned, the point is that this bibliography is a little unconventional since, instead of including the texts on the theme, it incorporates those texts which may not have focused on the subject being discussed. This is, however, not to suggest that there are no books on the theme; of course, there are texts although they do not appear to have addressed the issues which receive adequate attention in the book. Nonetheless, they, by providing facts, helped build arguments which are attempts at building new conceptual arguments by looking at the derivative facts afresh. As is obvious, it is difficult to delve into all relevant issues in one monograph; what has been endeavoured here is to show that an analytical reading of Aurobindo’s own texts helps us conceptualise his ideas of nationalism

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in a context when nationalism had a very narrow connotation in India, presumably because of the peculiar nature of Moderate nationalism. By conceptualising nationalism in a narrow sense, the Moderates created a space for Aurobindo and his colleagues who developed New Nationalism as a mode of challenging the non-righteous British rule. The bibliography is thus just directional to future researchers seeking to understand radical ideas with reference to those texts which remain most critical in their conceptualisation.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Argov, Daniel. 1968. Moderates and Extremists in the Indian Nationalist Movement, 1883–1920 with Special Reference to Surendranath Banerjea and Lajpat Rai. New York: Asia Publishing House. Bhattacharya, Sabyasachi. 2014. The Defining Moments in Bengal, 1920–1947. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Bose, Neilesh. 2014. Recasting the Region: Language, Culture and Islam in Colonial India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Bose, Sugata. 2007. ‘The Spirit and Form of an Ethical Polity: A Mediation on Aurobindo’s Thought’. Modern Intellectual History, 4 (1). Bose, Sugata and Ayesha Jalal, eds. 1997. Nationalism, Democracy and Development: State and Politics in India. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Broomfield, J.H. 1968. Elite Conflict in Plural Society: Twentieth Century Bengal. Berkeley: University of California Press. Chakravarti, Hiren. 1992. Political Protest in Bengal: Boycott and Terrorism. Calcutta: Firma KL Mukhopadhyay. Chaudhuri, Nirad. 1951. The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian. Berkeley: University of California Press. Gallagher, John. 1981. ‘Nationalisms and the Crisis of Empire, 1919–1922’. Modern Asian Studies, 15 (3). Ghosh, Durba. 2014. ‘An Archive of Political Trouble in India: History Writing, Anti-colonial Violence and Colonial Counterinsurgency, 1905–37’. In The Oxford Handbook of the History of Terrorism, edited by Carola Dietze and Claudia Verhoeven, (online). Available at https://nias.knaw.nl/books/ the-oxford-handbook-of-the-history-of-terrorism/ (accessed on 9 August 2023). ———. 2017. Gentlemanly Terrorists: Political Violence and the Colonial State in India, 1919–1947. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gordon, Leonard. 1974. The Nationalist Movement, 1876–1940. New York: Columbia University Press. Heehs, Peter. 1993. The Bomb in Bengal: The Rise of Revolutionary Terrorism in Bengal. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Iyengar, K.R. Srinivasa. 1950. Sri Aurobindo. Calcutta: Arya Publishing House. ———. 1961. Sri Aurobindo: An Introduction. Mysore: Rao and Raghavan. Kanungo, Hemchandra. 2015. Account of the Revolutionary Movement in Bengal. Kolkata: Setu Prakashani. Kapila, Shruti and Faisal Devji. 2013. Political Thought in Action: The Bhagavad Gita and Modern India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kumar, Pramod. 2004. Hunger Strike in Andamans: Repression and Resistance of Transported Prisoners in Cellular Jail. Lucknow: New Royal Book Company. Laushy, David. 1978. Bengal Terrorism and the Marxist Left. Calcutta: Firma KL Mukhopadhyay.

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INDEX 1907 Surat Congress session, 12–14, 26, 38, 53, 71, 75–76, 80, 91, 109, 120, 124, 132, 135, 159, 179 1908 Calcutta Congress session, 140, 144 1919 Champaran Satyagraha, 176, 182 1919 Kheda Satyagraha, 176 1920–1922 Non-cooperation Movement, 180, 183 1922 Gaya Congress session, 183 1929 Lahore Congress session, 26, 76 1932 Hibbert Lecture, 101 1947 Partition, 73

A

Aggressive resistance (also active resistance), 164, 171–173, 174, 180, 234, 237–238, 248–249, 251, 258–259, 264–265, 272, 305, 307 Akhara, 225 Alien government, 159, 214, 224, 282 Ambedkar, B.R., 23, 301 American independence, 167 Ananda, 113, 270 Anandamath, 34, 78–79, 89, 173 Anderson, Benedict, 304 Anti-British campaign, 5, 8, 15, 80, 109, 123, 126, 161, 196, 287, 296 Anti-British counter-offensive, 20, 139, 151, 173, 196, 301, 306 Anti-Moderate campaign, 25 Anushilan Samiti, 225, 290, 294 Appeasement policy, 250, 277 Argov, Daniel, 13 Aristotle, 225 Armed revolt, 162–163, 174 Artha, 222 Arya, 236 Asiatic Society of Bengal, 85, 273

Askesis, 263–264 Azad, Abul Kalam, 23

B

Banerjea, Surendranath, 5, 14, 75, 175 Baroda, 183, 185, 188, 192, 281, 302 Bengal Provincial Congress, 185 Pabna session of, 12, 300 Bhaktiyoga, 244, 272 Blade, 145 Bolshevik Party, 162 Bombay, 10, 27, 49, 71, 195, 306 Bonnerjee, Umesh Chandra, 5 Bose, Rajnarain, 17 Bourgeois mindset (also Bourgeois mentality), 28, 32, 34–35, 46–48, 57, 69–70 Bourgeois nationalism, 48 Brahmin theocracy, 56 Brahmacharya, 201, 203 Brahmo Samaj, 40, 123, 138, 151, 189, 225, 231, 273, 278 Brain of India, The, 197 British liberals, 148–149 patronage (also British tutelage), 31, 46, 54, 126, 159, 229, 264 rulers, 7, 11, 31, 35, 37, 42, 49, 53, 59, 71–72, 75, 82, 92, 97, 106–108, 111, 115, 146, 179, 183, 186, 204, 249, 252, 282, 284, 288, 293 suzerainty, 11, 147 Buddha, 236, 260 Buddhi, 208, 215–217 Burke, Edmund, 2–3, 287–288

C

Calcutta, 10, 14, 27, 49, 71, 140, 166–168, 195, 306 Calcutta University, 185

321

322

Index

‘Cautionary’ nationalism, 93 Centralised leadership, 175–176 Char Adhyay, 16, 255, 306 Chattopadhyay, Bankim Chandra, 17, 34, 40, 45, 78–79, 88–90, 109, 173, 243, 277, 286 Chaturanga, 145, 306 Chauri Chaura, 180 Chitta, 208, 216–217 Christ, 236 Civil disobedience, 127 Civilisational ethos, 31, 68–69, 87, 100, 122, 146, 231, 292 Class interest, 74, 166, 175 Class prejudice, 27, 74, 166 Coercive power, 31, 164, 219, 249 Colonialism, 1–3, 5, 8, 19, 32, 35, 39, 46, 62, 71–72, 75, 84, 90, 98, 100, 109, 127–128, 131, 136, 138, 143, 149, 153, 160, 163, 178, 182, 184–186, 191, 199, 212, 222, 245, 248–249, 254, 259, 270, 287–289, 298, 302, 306 Communal amity, 8, 116, 282, 284, 295 animosity, 74, 300 chasm, 119, 285 life, 64–65 schism, 16, 74, 103, 296 togetherness, 74, 117 Complete independence, 25, 71, 149, 174, 284 See also Purna Swaraj Composite nationalism, 42–43, 117, 119 conceptual parameter, 27, 29, 71, 144, 176 Congress activist, 75, 136 Congress leadership, 14, 38, 81, 126, 135, 155, 285, 295 Congress Nationalists, 5, 7, 91 Constitutional liberalism, 5, 20, 182, 229, 248–249, 264, 270, 277, 281, 298–299, 301 Creative thinking, 19, 115, 184, 192, 199 Curzon, Lord, 13–14, 108–109, 141, 146

D

Daivam, 266 Das, C.R., 119, 301 Debi Chaudhurani, 89 Decentralised leadership, 176 Deistic Hinduism, 304 Democracy and Education, 188 Democratic Nationalism, 6, 10–11, 20, 25, 71, 121, 123–125 Demos, 59, 63, 123 Despotism, 56, 112, 174 Dewey, John, 188 Dharma, 7, 58–59, 62, 65, 70, 113– 114, 222, 227, 241–242, 263, 272 Dharma yudha, 177, 227 Dharna, 127 Diversity, 167, 175, 292 Divide-and-rule strategy (also divideet-impera strategy), 73, 119, 136 Drain theory, 140 Dutt, R.C., 5, 11, 54, 76, 100, 105–109, 129, 132, 156, 158, 185, 272, 289, 297, 306 Dutta, Akshay, 17 Dutta, Madhusudan, 17

E

East Bengal, 13, 16, 74, 80, 116, 119, 133, 135, 141, 167, 171, 300–301 East India Company, 2 Economic History of India, The, 11, 54, 105–106, 108, 129, 289, 306 Economic decline, 54, 156 Economic policy, 76, 132, 140 Economic-cum-political interest, 168 Equality, 3, 132, 177, 244, 245–247 England, 25, 47, 76, 105, 108, 146, 164, 183, 191, 245, 297–298, 302 Enlightenment, 3–4, 19, 59, 71, 105, 109, 118, 154, 161–162, 228–229, 288–289 Essays on the Gita, 22, 231, 236, 245, 270, 275, 302 European culture, 31–32, 145 European discourse, 116, 145 Exclusionary politics, 43 Extremist, 11–13, 15, 49, 51, 119–120, 145, 162–164, 285

Index

F

Ferguson College, 90 first partition of Bengal, 16, 27, 79, 119, 125, 219, 252, 281, 284, 295, 299 First war of independence, 75, 150 Foreign goods, 14, 174 French Revolution, 10

G

Gandhian campaign, 27, 49 Congress, 26, 121 phase, 48, 144, 164, 287, 289 See also pre-Gandhian phase Garibaldi, 81 Ghare Baire, 15, 27, 30, 73, 78, 93, 103, 116, 124, 133, 135, 171, 224, 252–253, 255, 294, 297, 301, 306 Ghosh, Dr Rash Behari, 120–121 Gita Rahasya, 22, 90–91, 256, 307 Gora, 73, 124, 134–135, 292, 294–295, 306 Gunas, 245, 265–266, 274

H

Haq, Fazlul, 295 Hastings, Warren, 2, 288 Hegel (also Hegelian), 2, 229, 246 Hegemony, 1–2, 6, 9, 25–26, 32–33, 35, 39, 45, 48, 53, 55, 66–67, 69, 83, 86, 94–96, 101, 104–105, 111, 114, 123, 126, 138, 146, 148–150, 153, 157, 176, 219, 255, 260, 264, 272, 281, 283, 287, 297 Hind Swaraj, 29, 47, 71, 140, 289 Hindu ethos, 116 Hindu nationalism, 8, 101, 118 Hindu Sabha, 8 Hindu–Muslim amity (also HinduMuslim camaraderie, Hindu– Muslim cooperation and Hindu– Muslim unity), 27–28, 72–73, 78, 101, 118, 304 Hindu–Muslim chasm, 74, 87, 119, 296

323

Hindu–Muslim schism (also Hindu– Muslim divide), 112, 124, 135, 295 Hinduism, 8, 29–30, 229, 260, 304 Hit-and-run tactic, 31, 79, 196 Home Rule, 90, 121, 289 Home-made product, 14, 174 House of Lords, 2, 288 Hume, A.O., 5, 126, 150, 281

I

Identity politics, 14 Ideological campaign, 125 Ideological predilection, 92, 112, 139, 151, 306 Imagined Communities, 304 Immorality, 250 Impersonality, 244–245, 269 Inclusive nationalism, 44, 124 Indian Civil Service, 18, 47, 111, 281 Indian National campaign, 128 Indian National Congress (also National Congress), 5–6, 15, 20, 42, 53, 75–76, 81, 83, 86, 126, 150, 159, 162, 167–168, 175, 228, 273, 277, 281, 283–284, 289, 291, 294 Indian Opinion, 149 Indian polity, 28, 56, 59, 60, 62–66, 70 Indu Prakash, 22, 25–26, 71, 231, 244, 305 Industrial Revolution, 105, 133 Industrialisation, 1–2, 130 Intellectual tradition, 10, 91, 97, 116, 138, 160, 189, 239, 286–287

J

Japan, 9, 28, 30–32, 46, 155, 285 Jayaswal, S.S., 99 Jesus, 242 Jinnah, M.A., 74, 295 Jnanayoga, 244, 273 Jotedar, 167 Judiciary, 165–166 Jugantor, 225, 290, 294

324

Index

K

Lal-Bal-Pal, 6, 10–12, 22, 25–26, 28, 38, 41, 44, 53, 76, 104, 109–110, 126, 182, 195, 273, 282 Liberal constitutionalism,12, 59, 61, 63, 107, 126–127, 158 Liberal democracy, 59 Logical reasoning (also logical faculty), 217–219 Lokarahasya, 89 Loyalist, 5–7, 20, 25, 28, 71, 82, 107, 111–112, 121, 123, 128, 130, 132, 156–157, 167, 183, 186, 189, 191–192, 220, 249, 265, 281, 289

mobilisation, 22, 83, 290 nationalism, 22, 43, 54, 287 struggle, 20, 22 Maya, 202 Mazzini, 81 Mendicant politics, 13, 23, 42, 45, 88, 92 Mendicant nationalism, 10, 47, 53, 71, 91, 161, 173, 175, 181–182, 281, 283 Mental bankruptcy, 114 Mitra, Rajendralal, 17–18 Moderate argument, 54, 130 colleagues, 11, 20, 43, 75, 123, 143, 151, 159, 248, 283, 285, 305 compatriot, 161, 179, 253 Congress, 38, 82–83 Congressmen, 25–26, 85 leadership, 14, 25, 81, 85, 155 technique (also method), 14, 41, 75–76, 92, 107, 121, 128, 169, 248 thinker, 11, 100, 129, 198, 272, 297 Moksha, 222, 256–257 Montesquieu, 66 Morality, 20, 35, 132, 142–143, 163, 210–212, 232, 237–238, 250, 254 Morley–Minto Reforms, 75 Mukherjee, Ashutosh, 185 Mukherjee, Syama Prasad, 185 Muslim League, 8, 14, 27, 29, 44, 73, 78, 87, 119, 284–285, 295

M

N

Kama, 222 Kamalakantar Daptar, 89 Karmayoga, 244, 273 Karmayogi, 25, 112, 181, 231, 239–240, 268, 289, 295 Karmayogin, 6, 10, 22, 25–26, 71, 117, 231, 244, 281, 283–285, 287–288, 295, 302, 305 Karta, 265 Kauravas, 239, 242 Kesari, 90 Krishna, 90, 210, 227–229, 238–242, 245, 247, 252–253, 256–257, 262–263, 265, 269, 271, 276, 307 Kula, 56 Kurukshetra, 227, 238, 240, 245, 258, 271–272 Kutsa, 240

L

Macaulay, T.B., 186, 188, 198, 209, 213 Macaulay’s 1835 Minutes, 36, 111, 157, 183, 189, 191, 293 Mahabharata, 112, 227, 238, 252, 278, 302, 304 Mahomed, 236 Manas, 208, 215 Manicktola Bomb case, 285 Manu, 58 Mass

Nalanda, 219 Naoroji, Dadabhai, 5, 11, 37, 54, 75–76, 100, 105–109, 129, 132, 140, 144, 156, 158, 175, 185, 198, 272, 289, 297, 306 Nation in the Making, A, 175 Nation-building, 183, 185, 198 National education, 92, 133–134, 156, 176, 183–184, 187–188, 192–193, 197, 199–201, 204, 207, 210, 213–214, 219, 224–225

Index National freedom (also National liberation and National liberty), 94–95, 113, 134, 158, 178, 188, 223, 261, 278 Nationalist activists, 21, 79, 82, 170 agenda, 40–41, 76, 193, 287 agitation, 6, 23, 68, 77 argument, 45, 132 aspiration, 68, 123, 182, 187 battle, 16, 128, 167, 249 cause, 14–15, 21, 23, 31, 49, 78, 81, 83, 91, 104, 130, 135, 149,181, 183, 186–187, 191, 231, 252–254, 258, 281, 299, 302, 305 concern, 12, 133, 188, 197, 290, 302 context, 198, 239, 279, 306 counter attack, 41, 282 discourse, 20, 24, 30, 43, 76, 89, 102, 149, 152, 249, 264, 281, 300, 302, 304–305 education, 183, 186, 191 effort, 84, 192 endeavour, 15, 26, 41, 45, 182, 197, 256 fervour, 27, 111 goal, 41, 43, 45, 81, 120–121, 134– 135, 148, 152, 171, 173,182, 187, 223, 257, 284 grievance, 109, 150, 249 history, 52, 109, 150, 231, 292 intervention, 42, 287, 298–299 issue, 245, 277 language, 6, 282, 286–287 leadership, 16, 126, 224, 255 mobilisation, 90, 101, 139 narrative, 10, 31, 87, 121, 285 organisation, 27, 167–168, 186, 255, 306 platform, 30, 79, 171, 179, 285 politics, 26, 103, 121, 194, 231, 264, 296, 299, 301, 303–304, 306 protest, 12, 126, 151, 181

325

scene, 11, 23, 135, 195, 236, 244, 288 strategy, 76, 166, 286 struggle, 6, 11, 14–15, 20–21, 23, 40, 43, 54, 71–72, 87, 94, 123, 150, 160–161, 163, 168, 182, 185, 193, 196–197, 223, 225, 229, 231, 238, 270, 277, 279, 282–283, 286, 294, 307 thinker, 21, 52, 71, 97, 123, 125, 249, 299–300, 303–304 vocabulary, 6, 131, 139, 151, 283 zeal, 49, 79, 89, 98, 273 Naye Talim, 47, 184 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 23, 107 New Lamps for Old, 83, 86–87 New Thought: the Doctrine of Passive Resistance, The, 152 Nietzsche, 247–249 Nishkamkarma, 19 ‘No-tax’ policy, 168 Non-violence (also Non-violent resistance), 47–48, 127, 160, 181, 277, 283, 298

O

Organisational weakness, 155, 167 Organised attack, 7, 31, 176 Organised resistance, 158, 162, 174

P

Pakistan, 73, 112, 294, 303 Pal, Bipin Chandra, 6, 12, 22, 44, 92, 104, 178, 184, 297 Pandavas, 90, 239 Parnell of Ireland, 162 Partisan gain, 2, 11, 39, 54, 164, 190, 228, 246, 267, 289 Partition of Bengal, 16, 27, 79, 109, 119, 125, 141, 219, 252, 281, 284, 295, 299 Passive resister, 169–174, 181 Patel, Vallabhbhai, 23 Patha Bhavan, 189 Peaceful resistance, 249 Plato, 225, 268 Political

326

Index

campaign, 92, 122 freedom (also emancipation, independence and liberation), 5, 12, 21–22, 41, 45, 53–54, 72, 106, 109–110, 121, 123–124, 126, 128, 134–139, 151, 154, 156, 159–160, 176–179, 185, 193, 223–224, 234, 255–256, 259, 287, 289, 294, 303–304, 306 mobilisation, 20, 91, 94, 103, 105, 107, 113, 132, 152, 193, 229, 252, 279, 305 salvation, 27, 31, 53, 113, 146, 148, 157, 161, 232, 245, 288 sense, 43, 163 Vedantism, 102, 176–178 Politico-ideological activity, 33, 124 aim, 125, 150 model, 139, 264 objective, 10, 31, 53, 180, 188–189, 274, 289, 296 predilection, 112, 151 preference, 5, 28, 31, 34–35, 43, 87, 96, 98, 109, 131, 143, 148, 170, 182, 276, 298, 301, 303, 306 priority, 13, 20, 26, 31, 38, 40, 43, 47, 76, 94–95, 113, 117–118, 125, 128, 138, 142, 150, 153, 155, 178, 245, 249, 272, 279, 281, 283, 287, 289, 304–306 term, 95, 159 transformation, 33, 90 vision, 186, 268, 305 Politico-cultural issue, 84, 114 Politico-cultural milieu, 57, 61, 163, 198, 213 Poverty and Un-British Rule in India, 11, 37, 54, 105–106, 129, 140, 175, 185, 289, 306 Pragmatic Nationalist, 93, 181, 252 Prakriti, 202, 256, 274 Prayer, petition and protest, 13, 41, 53, 75, 92 Pre-Gandhian phase, 11

Princely state, 167, 281 Prophet of Indian Nationalism: A Study of Political Thought of Sri Aurobindo, 1893–1910, 305 Providential authority, 140, 142, 181 direction, 141, 272 force, 141, 275 intervention, 17, 115, 141, 230, 238, 266 Public domain, 21, 25, 73, 78, 85, 100, 109, 129, 151, 179, 231, 277, 284–285, 288, 294, 297, 299 Purna Swaraj (also complete Swaraj), 25–26, 29, 72, 284, 296 Purushartha, 94, 222

R

Racism, 149 Rai, Lala Lajpat, 6, 8, 12–13, 22–23, 92, 101, 110, 118, 199 Rajasic, 262, 266 Ramayana, 112, 278, 304 Ranade, M.G., 5, 75–76, 198 Rationalist, 16, 18 Raymond, Lizelle, 290 Realism, 253 Religion of Man, The, 101 Religious idiom, 17, 178 ‘Religious’ nationalism, 42 Revolutionary nationalism (also Militant nationalism), 2, 11–12, 16, 22–23, 26, 38, 42, 44–46, 48–49, 52–54, 75–76, 78, 83, 91, 103, 110, 120, 145, 183, 188, 281, 292, 296, 298–299 Rig Veda, 108 Roman Empire, 35 Rote learning, 184, 191–192, 198, 204–205 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 10 Roy, Rammohun, 17, 34, 40, 88, 100–101, 138, 149, 189, 225, 231, 277–278, 304 Tagore on, 3–5 Russo-Japanese War, 10

Index

S

Sabujpatra, 184 Samskara, 194, 211–212, 216 Samurai, 9–10, 28, 31–32, 41–42, 46–48, 52, 57–59, 61, 68–70, 298 Sanatan Hinduism, 29–30 Sandhya, 145 Sannyasi, 97, 99–100, 269 Sarkar, Sumit, 15–16, 44 Sattwic, 262–263, 266–268 Satyagraha, 141, 152, 176, 180–182, 279 Satyartha Prakasha, 96, 98 Savitri, 302 Self-development, 153, 156, 168, 174 Self-government, 13, 65, 90, 106, 123–124, 163, 173–174, 219 Self-help, 41, 168, 174, 180 Self-realisation, 178, 222 Self-sacrifice, 89, 92, 180 Sen, Keshabchandra, 40 Separation of powers, 66 Shakti, 202, 221 Shastra, 259–261 Shraddha, 264 Siksha Satra, 189 Singh, Karan, 305 Sinn Fein, 20 Social division, 136–137 Social freedom, 136–137 Socio-cultural characteristic, 68, 77, 92 context, 70, 92 design, 88, 124 difference, 46, 74 distance, 27, 74, 87, 294–295 divide (also division), 76, 90, 135, 140 diversity, 63, 292 heritage, 31, 86, 222, 286 identity, 7–8, 73, 113, 295 practice, 4, 40, 74 prejudice, 16, 45, 71–72, 124–125, 135, 137–138, 151, 178–179, 219, 224, 226, 256, 259, 284, 298, 302–303

327

process, 56, 186 reality, 97, 294 root, 36, 38, 55, 116, 145–146 tradition, 113, 286 Socio-economic reality, 63, 101 Socio-political idea, 11–12, 52, 62 Socio-political transformation, 188, 293 Spiritual awakening, 100, 113, 278 commitment, 61, 94–95, 173, 224, 250 freedom (also emancipation), 136–138 movement, 122, 146 strength, 59, 61, 138, 278, 292–193 uplift, 178, 222 Spiritualism, 27, 59, 95, 102, 142, 222, 224–225, 235, 237, 241, 243–244, 252–253, 266, 292, 303, 305–307 State repression, 153 Status-quoists, 33 Strategic device, 18, 180 Suffragette Movement, 127 Supreme Being, The (also Supreme Person), 11, 13, 241–242, 251, 268, 274 Swabhava, 211, 222 Swadeshi activist, 30, 80, 103, 115, 133, 171, 189, 224, 226, 252, 295, 297 Swadeshi campaign (also Swadeshi Movement), 7, 15–16, 22, 27, 30, 41, 44, 53–54, 73, 78–79, 87, 91, 103, 109, 115–117, 119–120, 125, 132–133, 136, 141, 144–146, 171, 188, 219, 224, 252, 255, 281, 290–291, 294–299, 301, 306 Swadeshi leadership, 133 Swadeshi Samaj (1904), 124, 135 Swadeshi, Swaraj and Self-help, 41 Swadharma, 222 ‘Swaraj and the Musulmans’, 284

328

Index

T

Tagore, Debendranath, 17, 40, 123, 138, 189, 273, 278 Tagore, Dwarkanath, 278 Tamasic, 262, 266 Taxshila, 219 Tapobon siksha, 184 Thoreau, H.D., 127 Tolstoy, Leo, 127 Tota Kahini, 184 Two-nation theory, 74, 295 Tyaga (also renunciation), 264–265, 269–270, 275–276, 307

U

Unhappy India, 110 United Provinces, 180 Universal humanism, 16, 235, 256, 262, 300, 303 Upadhyay, Brahmabandhav, 145 Upanishad, 2–3, 7–9, 29, 95, 100–101, 103, 112, 114, 123, 138, 141, 178, 182, 200–201, 212, 225–226, 229, 235–236, 238, 247, 250, 262, 268, 273–274, 278, 287, 294, 302, 304

V

Vasudhaiva kudumbakam, 212, 226 Vedantic Nationalism, 178

Vedantism, 102, 176–178 Vedic nationalism, 98–99 Vedic revivalism, 99 Vidyasagar, 17, 231 Vikramshila, 219 Visva-Bharati, 189, 226 Violence, 31, 49, 51, 76, 88, 109, 153, 163–164, 172, 174, 180–181, 237, 247–248, 262, 269, 290, 298–299 Vivekananda, 78, 95, 102, 114, 117, 138, 290–293

W

Weekly, 22, 25, 27, 110, 145, 149, 231, 245, 281, 283, 288, 295, 303, 305 Western civilisation, 19, 31, 71, 140 Western discourse, 4, 19, 27, 38, 46, 60, 71, 84, 92, 94, 100–101, 114–115, 138, 151, 159, 181, 199, 201, 230–232, 273, 286 ‘What Is Nationalism’, 181

Y

Yoga, 194 Young India, 149 Yugh-sandhya, 69

Z

Zamindar, 15, 74, 87, 119, 166–167, 301

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Bidyut Chakrabarty was Vice Chancellor, Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, West Bengal, India from 2018 till 2023.

329