THE WRITTEN WORD
Sri Aurobindo’s Philosophy of Indian Nationalism
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Sri Aurobindo’s Philosophy of Indian Nationalism
Sri Aurobindo’s Philosophy of Indian Nationalism-I
A most luminous and revelatory exposition of philosophy of nationalism and of Indian nationalism is to be found in the writings of Sri Aurobindo. In fact, Sri Aurobindo’s own life is a flaming example of Indian nationalism, not only in its uniqueness but also in its universality. If we study the history of Indian nationalism, we shall find that he stands out as the most heroic nationalist who formulated in the most inspiring terms the true aim of Indian nationalism, during the early period of nationalist struggle and accomplished the task of fixing it in the national consciousness within a short period of two years (1906-8) through blazing pages of the Bande Mataram. This miracle can be regarded as an unparalleled achievement in the entire world history of nationalism.
The greatest thing done in those years was the creation of a new spirit in the country, a new electric current that awakened the people to the true meaning of nationalism and filled them with enthusiasm that created waves after waves all over the country. Repression and depression could not silence the stir of this enthusiasm. After each wave of repression and depression, it renewed the thread of the life of movement for liberation and kept it recognisably one throughout nearly fifty years of its struggle. The cry of Bande Mataram rang on all sides, and people felt it glorious to be alive and dare and act together and hope. The old apathy and timidity was broken and a force was created which nothing could destroy, and it carried India to the beginning of a complete victory.
It must be remembered that the climate under which the message of the Bande Mataram had to combat with its adversary forces was entirely unfavourable. The British Government had detected in Sri Aurobindo “the most dangerous man” and had perceived the rising tide of nationalist movement with utmost severity and with harshest measures of repression. Within the country itself, there was the rising tide of the Moderate Party and its leaders who had belief in British justice and benefits from the foreign government in India, faith in British law courts and in the adequacy of the education given in schools and universities in India. They had assumed that the philosophy of nationalism was impracticable and they had stigmatised this philosophy as a philosophy of extremism. These leaders had an ambiguous attitude towards the demand of complete independence of India. Many of them preached the gospel of faith in the British and in the British rule. Even those among them whose heart rebelled against the servile doctrine were intellectually so much dominated by the British influence that they could not embrace the philosophy of nationalism with their whole heart and tried to arrive at a compromise between subjection and independence. They discovered an intermediate path in which the blessings of freedom could be harmoniously wedded with the blessings of subjection! They spoke, therefore, of colonial self-government. Some of these leaders were emotionally nationalists and yet intellectually loyalists. There was a view that disunion and weakness are ingrained characteristics of the Indian people and outside power was necessary in order to arbitrate, to keep the peace and to protect the country from the menace of the mightier nations. They also advocated that a healthy development was possible at the time only under foreign domination and that such development must be first effected before we could begin to dream of freedom or even of becoming a nation. In the view of the Moderate Party, the philosophy of Indian nationalism as advocated by nationalist leaders like Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal, Lala Lajpat Rai, Sri Aurobindo and others was untenable and was even an avoidable menace.
There was a view among journalists such as that of Mr. N.N. Ghose of the Indian Nation that because there is diversity of race in India, because there is diversity of religion in India, and because there is diversity of language in India, the essential conditions of a nationality were absent and there was no possibility of creating a nationality in our country. As this perilous contention is crucial to the understanding of the notion of nation, of nationality and of nationalism, it may be useful to refer to the article Sri Aurobindo wrote in Bande Mataram (August 17, 1907) in which he answered it effectively. He argued that every nationality has been formed in spite of diversity of race or religion or language, and not unoften in spite of the coexistence of all these diversities. He pointed out that the English nation has been built not only out of various races but keep to this day their distinct individuality and that each one of them clings to its language tenaciously. He referred to the striking example of Switzerland where distinct racial streams speaking three different languages and, later, professing different religions coalesced into and persists as one nation without sacrificing a single of those diversities. He referred to France where three different languages are spoken; he pointed that in America, the candidates for White House addressed the nation in fourteen languages; he referred to Austria, a congeries of races and languages, and he referred to acute divisions in Russia.
Sri Aurobindo maintained that the contention that unity in race, religion or language is essential to nationality will not bear examination. He acknowledged that such elements of unity are very helpful to the growth of nationality, but they are not essential and will Referring to the example of the Roman Empire, he pointed out that even though it created a common language, a common religion and life, and did its best to crush out racial diversities under the heavy weight of its uniform system, failed to make one great nation.
What, then, Sri Aurobindo asked, are the essential elements of nationality? And he answered:
“We answer that there are certain essential conditions, geographical unity, a common past, a powerful common interest impelling towards unity and certain favourable political conditions which enable the impulse to realise itself in an organised government expressing the nationality and perpetuating its single and united existence. This may be provided by a part of the nation, a race or community, uniting the others under its leadership or domination, or by an united resistance to a common pressure from outside or within. A common enthusiasm coalescing with a common interest is the most powerful fosterer of nationality. We believe that the necessary elements are present in India, we believe that the time has come and that by a common resistance to a common pressure in the shape of the boycott, inspired by a common enthusiasm and ideal, that united nationality for which the whole history of India has been a preparation, will be speedily and mightily accomplished.” 1
In these brief but compelling lines we have a quintessential answer to the question as to what is a nation, what is nationality and what is nationalism. In the light of this affirmation it becomes clear that a nation or what may be called the soul of nation may exist and yet it may not be visible; it may take birth, but it may take long for it to create and develop; it may develop in many directions, but not yet integrally; it may be recognised by some or many in the country but not necessarily by masses of people; it may rest on a geographical unity, and yet it can become fragmented or disrupted or divided for short or long periods; it may attain even political unity as also geographical unity and yet its centrifugal and centripetal forces may not be in harmony with each other or in a balanced state of equilibrium. There may be rise and fall in the self-awareness of nationalism, new questions may arise that may disturb the manifestation of the soul of the nation. And yet, the seer of the soul of the nation will always recognise it and work for its manifestation.
Sri Aurobindo’s Philosophy of Indian Nationalism-II
Much has been written about the philosophy of nationalism and philosophy of Swaraj. Leaders of the Moderate Party, in order to belittle the importance of what they called extremists and their philosophy derided their opponents as votaries of violence and lawlessness and advocates of a blind or impulsive pursuit of the impracticable ideal of complete independence of India. Sri Aurobindo, in order to clarify the position of the philosophy of nationalism, wrote a brief but a powerful article on April 26, 1907, under the title, Nationalism Not Extremism. He said that the new movement was not primarily a protest against bad Government but that it was a protest against the continuance of British control. He pointed that the new movement was born of a conviction that the time had come when India can, should and would become great, free and united again. He clarified that it was not a negative current of destruction, but a positive, constructive impulse towards the making of a modern India, that it was not a cry of revolt and despair, but a gospel of national faith and hope. He said that its true description was not Extremism but Nationalism.
Continuing his argument, Sri Aurobindo pointed out that there were not two parties in India but three, – the Loyalists, the Moderates and the Nationalists, and he articulated clearly the philosophies of all the three parties so as to bring out clearly the philosophy of nationalists. This articulation is so succinct and brings out the philosophy of nationalism with such sharpness that we should read it in full.
Sri Aurobindo wrote:
“The Loyalists would be satisfied with good Government by British rulers and a limited share in the administration; the Moderates desire self-government within the British Empire, but are willing to wait for it indefinitely; the Nationalists would be satisfied with nothing less than independence whether within the Empire, if that be possible, or outside it; they believe that the nation cannot and ought not to wait, but must bestir itself immediately, if it is not to perish as a nation. The Loyalists believe that Indians have not the capacities and qualities necessary for freedom and even if they succeed in developing the necessary fitness, they would do better for themselves and mankind by remaining as a province of the British Empire; any attempt at freedom will, they think, be a revolt against Providence and can bring nothing but disaster on the country. The Loyalist view is that India cannot, should not and will not be a free, great and united nation. The Moderates believe the nation to be too weak and disunited to aim at freedom; they would welcome independence if it came, but they are not convinced that we have or shall have in the measurable future the means or strength to win it or keep it if won. They therefore put forward Colonial Self- Government as their aim and are unwilling to attempt any methods which presuppose strength and cohesion in the nation. The Moderate view is that India may eventually be united, self-governing within limits and prosperous, but not free and great. The Nationalists hold 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. They hold that the choice is not between autonomy and provincial Home Rule or between freedom and dependence, but between freedom and national decay and death. They hold, finally, that the past history of our country and present circumstances are of such a kind that the great unifying tendencies hitherto baffled by insuperable obstacles have at last found the right conditions for success. They believe that the fated hour for Indian unification and freedom has arrived. In brief, they are convinced that India should strive to be free, that she can be free and that she will, by the impulse of her past and present, be inevitably driven to the attempt and the attainment of national self-realisation. The Nationalist creed is a gospel of faith and hope.” 2
This statement is also a manifesto of the philosophy of Swaraj. This philosophy regarded Swaraj as not mere political freedom but a freedom vast and entire, freedom of the individual, freedom of the community, freedom of the nation, spiritual freedom, social freedom and political freedom. Sri Aurobindo, in a powerful article on Swaraj (February 18, 1908), argued that if political freedom is absent, the community has no great ends to follow and the individual is confined within a narrow circuit in which the superiority of caste, wealth or class is the only ambition he can cherish. He pointed out that if political freedom opens to him a wider horizon, he forgets the lesser ambitions. Moreover, he contended, a slave can never be noble and broad-minded. He could not forget himself in the service of his fellows; for he already is a slave and service is the badge of his degradation, not a willing self-devotion. When man is thus degraded, Sri Aurobindo observed, it is idle to think that society can be free.
Sri Aurobindo went farther and pointed out that not only social freedom but even spiritual freedom can never be the lot of many in the land of slaves. He asked, “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?”3
He stated further:
“Compassion to all creatures is the condition of sainthood, and the perfect Yogin is he who is sarvabhutahite ratah, whose mind is full of the will to do good to all creatures. When a man shuts his heart to the cries of sufferings around him, when he is content that his fellow-men should be sorrowful, oppressed, sacrificed to the greed of others, he is making his own way to salvation full of difficulties and stumbling blocks. He is forgetting that God is not only in himself but in all these millions. And for those who have not the strength, spiritual freedom in political servitude is a sheer impossibility. When India was free, thousands of men set their feet in the stairs of heaven, but as the night deepened and the sun of liberty withdrew its rays, the spiritual force inborn in every Indian heart became weaker and weaker until now it burns so faintly that aliens have taken upon themselves the role of spiritual teachers, and the people chosen by God have to sit at the feet of the men from whose ancestry the light was hidden. God has set apart India as the eternal fountainhead of holy spirituality, and He will never suffer that fountain to run dry. Therefore Swaraj has been revealed to us. By our political freedom we shall once more recover our spiritual freedom. Once more in the land of the saints and sages will burn up the fire of the ancient Yoga and the hearts of her people will be lifted up into the neighbourhood of the Eternal.” 4
Swaraj without any limit or reservation came to be fixed as the aim of the philosophy of nationalism. Swaraj came to be seen as a lifebelt, as the pilot, as the star of guidance. Sri Aurobindo also saw the necessity of Swaraj for the fulfilment of India’s true role in the comity of nations.
He wrote:
“India is the guru of the nations, the physician of the human soul in its profounder maladies; she is destined once more to new mould the life of the world and restore the peace of the human spirit. But Swaraj is the necessary condition of her work and before she can do the work, she must fulfil the condition.”5
The philosophy of Swaraj was accompanied by a programme of effective Boycott. Both Tilak and Sri Aurobindo were in favour of an effective Boycott of British goods. They wanted the Boycott to be a political weapon and not merely as an aid to Swadeshi. They both advocated national self-sufficiency in key industries and in the production of necessities of all manufactures in which India had the natural means. In addition, national education was another item of the programme. The nationalist movement was also a movement of national education. This movement advocated the establishment of national schools and colleges so as to remedy the ills of education given by the British. Sri Aurobindo maintained that the British system tended to dull and impoverish and tie up the naturally quick and brilliant and supple Indian intelligence, to teach it bad intellectual habits and spoil by narrow information of mechanical instruction its rationality and productivity. Sri Aurobindo, in fact, wrote a full-fledged book entitled National System of Education, and another on National Value of Art. This entire programme, along with the programme of mass awakening and settlement of disputes by recourse to non- British tribunals, included a movement of passive resistance. This entire programme had a comprehensive aim of the attainment of all sided and integral Swaraj.
Sri Aurobindo’s Philosophy of Indian Nationalism-III
Philosophy of nationalism was often described by the Moderate leaders as a philosophy of violence. In order to contradict this misleading contention, we must study a series of articles written by Sri Aurobindo in Bande Mataram on the doctrine of passive resistance between 11th April to 23rd April 1907. One of the main contentions of these articles was to point out that the problem that faced the country at that time was how to stave off imminent national death, how to put an end to the white peril, how to assert for the people of India their right to be themselves and to live. The only immediate answer, he said, was an organised national resistance to the state of things so as to achieve one goal, namely, freedom. He referred to three alternative courses open. The first alternative was that of an organised passive resistance. This was the kind of the course of action that was initiated by Parnell when by the plan of campaign he prevented the payment of rents in Ireland and by persistent obstruction hampered the transaction of any but Irish business in Westminster. The second alternative course was the one illustrated by the first triumph of Russian liberty which involved a series of strikes on a gigantic scale that manifested widespread, desperate and unappeasable anarchy. The third course open to an oppressed nation, Sri Aurobindo contended, was of an armed revolt. Sri Aurobindo argued that the choice by subject nation of the means it will use for vindicating its liberty, is best determined by the circumstances of its servitude.
On this point, Sri Aurobindo wrote:
“The present circumstances in India seem to point to passive resistance as our most natural and suitable weapon. We would not for a moment be understood to base this conclusion upon any condemnation of other methods as in all circumstances criminal and unjustifiable. It is the common habit of established Governments and especially those which are themselves oppressors, to brand all violent methods in subject peoples and communities as criminal and wicked. When you have disarmed your slaves and legalised the infliction of bonds, stripes and death on any one of them, man, woman or child, who may dare to speak or to act against you, it is natural and convenient to try and lay a moral as well as a legal band on any attempt to answer violence by violence, the knout by the revolver, the prison by riot or agrarian rising, the gallows by the dynamite bomb. But no nation yet has listened to the cant of the oppressor when itself put to the test, and the general conscience of humanity approves the refusal. Under certain circumstances a civil struggle becomes in reality a battle and the morality of war is different from the morality of peace. …But where the oppression is legal and subtle in its methods and respects life, liberty and property and there is still breathing time, the circumstances demand that we should make the experiment of a method of resolute but peaceful resistance which, while less bold and aggressive than other methods, calls for perhaps as much heroism of a kind and certainly more universal endurance and suffering. In other methods, a daring minority purchase with their blood the freedom of the millions; but for passive resistance it is necessary that all should share in the struggle and the privation.” 6
Sri Aurobindo also pointed out through the pages of Bande Mataram that the philosophy of nationalism is not the philosophy of unreasoning spirit of violence and preference of desperate methods, that nationalism does not advocate lawlessness as contended by the moderate leaders. He argued that the nationalists did not love the philosophy of suffering for its own sake. In positive terms, Sri Aurobindo clarified that nationalism has deeper respect for the essence of law than anyone else, because the building up of the nation is its object and because without a profound reverence for law the national life cannot persist and attain a sound and healthy development. At the same time, he argued that the philosophy of nationalism qualifies its respect for legality by the proviso that the law that the nationalist is called upon to obey is the law of the nation, and not a law imposed from outside. The nationalist, he asserted, never loses sight of the truth that law was made for man and not man for law. Its chief function and reason for existence is to safeguard and foster the growth and happy flowering into strength and health of national life. He further stated that nationalism refuses to accept law as a fetish or peace and security as aims in themselves while it will not prefer violent or strenuous methods simply because they are violent or strenuous. The philosophy of nationalism, Sri Aurobindo elucidated, is to ask of the 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.
It is true that philosophy of ahimsa which came to be advocated by Mahatma Gandhi later was not part of Indian nationalism as understood by the nationalist leaders like Tilak, Sri Aurobindo and others. On the subject of non-violence, there has remained a diversion of opinion, and if we study Sri Aurobindo and what he wrote on the subject of violence and non-violence, it is clear that a distinction should be made between acts of violence and acts of destruction. Violent act emerges from anger and hatred, but acts of destruction may not necessarily emerge from anger and hatred. A physician uses his knife for destruction of a disease, but in the motive there is no anger or hatred. Destruction advocated by Sri Krishna in the battlefield of Kurukshetra was to be carried out in consciousness of non-attachment and not in that of anger or hatred.
As this matter is very important, it will be useful to point out that while Mahatma Gandhi looked upon ahimsa as a matter of creed and a large number of his followers in the country also took it as such, many other leaders including Jawaharlal Nehru and others took it as a matter of policy under the, then prevailing, circumstances in the country. A school of thought right through the freedom struggle continued to hold the view that the revolutionary movement using weapons of various kinds was indispensable. After India became independent, the National Policy considered Defence Services to be indispensable as a part of support to patriotism. Sri Aurobindo’s views cannot be regarded as pacifist, since Sri Aurobindo had believed in the efficacy of revolutionary activities of destruction and he had joined the secret society whose purpose was to prepare a national insurgence. In his public activity, however, he took passive resistance as the means in the struggle, but not as the sole means. In fact, as long as he was in Bengal, he maintained a secret revolutionary activity as preparation for open revolt, in case the passive resistance proved insufficient for the purpose.
To get a fuller idea of Sri Aurobindo in regard to this matter, we should also add the following lines from his famous book, Essays on Gita:
“All this is not to say that strife and destruction are the alpha and omega of existence, that harmony is not greater than war, love is more manifest divine than death or that we must not move towards the replacement of physical force by soul-force, of war by peace, of strife by union, of devouring by love, of egoism by universality, of death by immortal life.” 7
Sri Aurobindo regarded non-violence or peace as the part of the highest ideal, but contended it must be spiritual or at the very least psychological in its basis. He pointed out later in a letter that without a change in human nature it could not come with any finality. If it is admitted on any other basis (mental principle, gospel of Ahimsa or any other) it will fail and even leave things worse than before. Sri Aurobindo’s position and practice in this matter was the same as Tilak’s and that of other nationalist leaders. In any case, Sri Aurobindo insists that violence generated from anger or hatred or as an aggressive principle of action in the conditions of freedom and peace is entirely unjustifiable and it should not be resorted to any extent whatsoever.
Sri Aurobindo’s Philosophy of Indian Nationalism-IV
Philosophy of Indian nationalism is also the philosophy of patriotism. In view of this philosophy, patriotism is not limited to the love of the land of the country, janmabhumi, but it is also love for the people of the land. This philosophy goes even further and inspires love of the values of the culture that have been nourished and promoted through a long history of five thousand years and more. And beyond the values of this great culture, patriotism is in its heart-illumined worship of the smiling and beneficent and strong and powerful Shakti, which we call Mother India, Bharat Mata. As Sri Aurobindo wrote, a nation is not a piece of earth, nor a figure of spirit, nor a fiction of mind, it is a mighty Shakti composed of the Shaktis of all the millions of units that make up the nation. He further pointed out that the nation is veritably a soul, which is immortal and even when geographically fragmented or divided, it has the power to reunite itself as one unity in diversity.
Indian nationalism has been a source of a great recovery and reassertion of those qualities of Dharma which have been the force of upliftment of millions of peoples of this country. That philosophy inspired thousands of martyrs, great and gallant Chidambarams, brave Padmanabhas, intrepid Shivas who defied the threats of exile and imprisonment. The force of patriotism, of the value of self-sacrifice, of the value of worship of Mother India,—this patriotism and its values live with us and we stand in the need to remember them, to collect them together and to pour them into a new system of education that we are striving today to construct. In an inspired article (March 11, 1908 of Bande Mataram) Sri Aurobindo gave expression to the voices of the martyrs from their cells which cry out to us and give us an imperishable message which we can incorporate in our studies that aim at value oriented education:
“Work, but aspire, so that your work may be true to the call you have heard and which we have obeyed; labour for great things first and the small will come of themselves. Cherish the might of the spirit, the nobility of the ideal, the grandeur of the dream; the spirit will create the material it needs, the ideal will bring the real to its body and self-expression, the dream is the stuff out of which the waking world will be created. It was the strength of the spirit which stood with us before the alien tribunal, it was the force of the ideal which led us to the altar of sacrifice, it is the splendour of the dream which supports us through the dreary months and years of our martyrdom. For these are the truth and the divinity within the movement.” 8
When we think today of value-oriented education and as we are planning to create among our students the immortal spirit of nationalism and patriotism, we are required to develop means by which the vision of the nation can stand out in the centre of their consciousness and they are able to feel and perceive the invisible but mighty soul of Mother India. At the same time, patriotism will also teach them to recognise the soul of other nations, the soul of entire humanity, in particular, the spirit of one united family of humanity. We need to ensure that students of today and tomorrow understand and work for those ideals for which leaders and youths, whether Hindus or Mohammedans, whether Christians or Sikhs, whether Jews or Parsis, irrespective of religion, language and race sacrificed their lives so that we may live in freedom and protect our freedom with courage and heroism.
Sri Aurobindo had conceived of a national system of education, which had three important elements. Firstly, he made it clear that national education did not mean that we have to exile Galileo and Newton and all that came after and teach only what was known to Bhaskara, Aryabhatta and Varahamihira. But it means that an adequate place should be provided for the study of the noble heritage of our country and, while we must keep abreast with the march of truth and knowledge, we must also fit ourselves for existence under actual circumstances. Our education, he suggested, must be up to date in form of substance and modern in life and spirit. Secondly, he pointed out that the major question is not merely what science we learn, but what we shall do with our Indian science and how to acquire the scientific mind and recover the habit of scientific discovery, as also how we shall relate it to other powers of the human mind and scientific knowledge to other knowledge more intimate to other and not less light-giving and power-giving parts of our Indian intelligence and nature. The aim and principle of a true philosophy of national education, according to Sri Aurobindo, should not ignore modern truth and knowledge, but to take our foundation on our own being, our own mind and our own spirit. And thirdly, Sri Aurobindo pointed out that this philosophy of national education should underline the fact that the most advanced minds of the occident are beginning to turn in their red evening for the hope of a new and more spiritual civilisation to the genius of Asia, and at that moment, it would be strange if we can think of nothing better than to cast away our own self and potentialities and put our trust in the dissolving past of Europe.
The values of patriotism, the values of universal brother-hood and the values inherent in the philosophy of national education that demands the discovery of our national soul,—these and their immense implications would constitute a new message that should guide the formulation of value-oriented education. In that new system of education, in that new system of value-oriented education, the heritage of India, the heritage that has always inspired the higher aspirations and achievements in India must form an integral part. Philosophy of Indian nationalism, and philosophy of internationalism that respects mutuality of all the national souls and their unity, and the right understanding of the inspiring values of Indian heritage,—this we need to put forward as the needed elements of India’s reconstruction.
Sri Aurobindo’s Philosophy of Nationalism and Internationalism
Sri Aurobindo’s Philosophy of Nationalism and Internationalism-I
There is a sense of something mysterious, invisible and intangible when we think of the concept and reality of the nation. For it is difficult to seize the essentiality of the truth of nationality and nationalism. A nation may exist, and yet it may not be recognisable; it may take birth and grow, and yet be overpowered or overshadowed by larger aggregates such as empires or leagues. The development of a nation may take long periods of centuries for its destructive formation as in the case of France, Germany and India. It may develop in many directions, but not yet integrally. A nation may be recognised as such by some leaders of the country, but not necessarily by the common mind in its self-consciousness. It rests on a geographical unity, and yet this unity can become fragmented or disrupted or divided for short or long periods. A nation may attain even political unity as also geographical unity, and yet it’s centrifugal and centripetal forces may not be in harmony with each other or in a balanced state of equilibrium. There may be rise and fall in the self-awareness of nationalism; new questions may arise in the course of tide and ebb of nationalism that may disturb the manifestation of what may be called the soul of the nation. And yet, the seer of the soul of the nation will always recognise it and work for its manifestation. Political history, focussed on the development of human aggregates, particularly of empires and nations, can be variously interpreted for arriving at differing notions of nationality and nationalism. During the first decade of the 20th century, when nationalist philosophy came to preponderate in our country, there were conflicting notions as to what constituted a nation and whether India was really a nation or could become a nation and whether nationalist contentions in regard to nationalism could be justified. We find a brilliant exposition of these views as also their evaluation in the pages of Bande Mataram (1906-08) through which Sri Aurobindo provided not only a most luminous and revelatory philosophy of Indian nationalism but also an uplifting force of inspiration which created in the whole country a new spirit of awakening whereby the people were infused with enthusiasm, faith and hope. The cry of Bande Mataram was heard on all sides, and people felt it glorious to be alive and dare and act together. The philosophy of nationalism that was articulated was a philosophy of the truth of the Indian nation and its history, the philosophy of Swaraj, the philosophy of ends and means, the philosophy of patriotism, and the philosophy of education and national reconstruction. And the way and the speed with which this philosophy succeeded in a short period of two years in breaking the old apathy and timidity and in fixing in the national consciousness the idea and force of Swaraj and the programme through which Swaraj was sought to be attained has been rightly looked upon as a miracle and an unparalleled achievement in the entire world history of nationalism.
There were basically three important standpoints in regard to nationalism that were in conflict with each other during the momentous period during which the pages of Bande Mataram were being written. There was, first, the viewpoint of the Loyalists; there was, secondly, the view of the Moderates, and there was thirdly, the view of the Nationalists who were also misleadingly labelled by the Moderates as extremists. According to Loyalists, Indians did not have the capacities and qualities necessary for freedom, and even if they succeeded in developing the necessary fitness, they would, it was argued, do better for themselves and mankind by remaining as a province of the British Empire. According to this view, India cannot, should not and will not be a free, great and united nation, and that India should remain satisfied with good governance by the British rulers and a limited share in the administration. The Moderates believed that India was too weak and disunited to aim at freedom; they welcomed independence if it came, but they were not convinced that India had in the measurable future the means or strength to win freedom or keep it if won. According to them, colonial self-government should be India’s aim and they were unwilling to attempt any methods which presupposed strength and cohesion in the nation. The Moderate view was that India may eventually be united, self-governing within limits and prosperous, but not free and great. As against both these views, the Nationalists held that Indians were capable of freedom and that their defects were the results of servitude and could only be removed by the struggle for freedom. They maintained that the choice was not between freedom and dependence, between autonomy and provincial Home Rule, but between freedom and national decay and death. They held that the past history of our country and present circumstances are of such a kind that the great unifying tendencies hitherto baffled by insuperable obstacles had at last found the right condition for the success. They believed that the hour for national unification and freedom had arrived and India should strive to be free and that India could be free and that she would, by the impulse of her past and present, be inevitably driven to the attempt and the attainment of national realisation.
There was at the same time another line of thought, according to which diversity of race in India, diversity of religion in India, and diversity of language in India precluded India from becoming a nation and that there was no possibility of creating a nationality in our country. In answer to this perilous contention which was formulated by Mr. N.N. Ghose of the Indian Nation, Sri Aurobindo wrote:
“Rather we find that every nationality has been formed not because of, but in spite of, diversity of race or religion or language, and not unoften in spite of the co-existence of all these diversities. The Indian Nation has itself admitted that the English nation has been built out of various races, but he (N.N. Ghose) has not stated the full complexity of the British nation. He has not observed that to this day the races which came later into the British nationality keep their distinct individuality even now and that one of them clings to its language tenaciously. He has carefully omitted the striking example of Switzerland where distinct racial strains speaking three different languages and, later, professing different religions, coalesced into and persisted as one nation without sacrificing a single one of these diversities. In France three different languages are spoken; in America the candidates for White House address the nation in fourteen languages, Austria is a congeries of races and languages, the divisions in Russia are hardly less acute. That unity in race, religion or languages is essential to nationality is an idea which will not bear examination. Such elements of unity are very helpful to the growth of a nationality, but they are not essential and will not even of themselves assure its growth. The Roman Empire though it created a common language, a common religion and life, and did its best to crush out racial diversities under the heavy weight of its uniform system failed to make one great nation.”9
Sri Aurobindo also enumerated essential elements of nationality, namely, geographical unity, a common past, a powerful common interest impelling towards unity and certain favourable political conditions which enable the impulse to realise itself in an organised Government expressing nationality and perpetuating its single and united existence. He acknowledged that common interests may be provided by a part of the nation, a race or community, uniting the others under its leadership or domination, or by a united resistance to have a common pressure from outside or within. He underlined that a common enthusiasm coalescing with a common interest is the most powerful fosterer of nationality.
He concluded:
“We believe that the necessary elements are present in India, we believe that the time has come and that by a common resistance to a common pressure in the shape of the boycott, inspired by a common enthusiasm and ideal, that united nationality for which the whole history of India has been a preparation, will be speedily and mightily accomplished.”10
Sri Aurobindo’s Philosophy of Nationalism and Internationalism-II
The theme of Indian nationalism occupied Sri Aurobindo throughout his life, and he wrote on this subject even when he had left in 1910 active participation in the political activity on account of his total occupation with the future of India and the world and with the integral yoga that he was developing and perfecting as an aid to the solution of the evolutionary crisis of humanity. This theme was developed by him in four of his books that he wrote during 1914 and 1921, namely, The Life Divine, The Foundations of Indian Culture, The Ideal of Human Unity and The Human Cycle. In these books, we find illuminating analysis and exposition incomparable in depth and context with any other analysis and exposition of what may be called the philosophical foundations of nationalism and Indian nationalism. These foundations, as we discern them in Sri Aurobindo’s writings, are those relating to the philosophy of the individual and the aggregate, philosophy of the national aggregate and national unity, philosophy of nationality and nation-state, and philosophy of nationalism, internationalism, and universality.
The philosophy of the individual and the aggregate underlines an inevitable interconnection between the human being and humanity, which is the largest aggregate for human beings. But this interconnection is mediated by the individual’s membership of various groups of smaller or larger dimensions. And, at an important stage of development, the formation of nations is initiated, and the resultant formation of national unity follows three stages. There is, first, some kind of looser yet sufficiently compelling order of society and common type of civilisation to serve as a framework within which the edifice of the nation can arise. The next stage is marked by a period of stringent organisation directed towards unity and centrality of control and perhaps a general levelling and uniformity under that central direction. Finally, there comes about a period of free internal development, which because of the gains of the second stage of development, would no longer bring with it the peril of disorder, disruption, arrest of the secure growth and formation of the organism. The first stage depends upon the past history and present conditions of the elements that have to be welded into a national unity. Although the spirit, form and equipoise worked out differently in different parts of the world, the motive force that everywhere was the necessity of a large effective form and common social life marked by fixity of status through which individual and common interests might be brought under the yoke of a sufficient religious, political and economic unity. The institution of a fixed social hierarchy seems to have been a necessary stage for the first tendencies of national formation. But in the second stage, there comes about the modification of the social structure so as to make room for a powerful and feasible centre of political and administrative unity. This stage is marked by a strong tendency towards the abrogation of liberties, and we can see here the historical importance of a powerful kingship in the evolution of the nation-type, as it actually developed in the medieval times. The monarchical resisted. Hence, there came about the collapse of the old world and the birth of a new age.
As Sri Aurobindo points out, the nation unit is not formed and does not exist merely for the sake of existing; its purpose is to provide a larger mould of human aggregation in which the race, and not only classes and individuals, may move towards its full human development. A stage must therefore come when in all directions, men and women have to come into their own, realise the dignity and freedom of human hood within them and give play to their utmost capacity.
As a result, the ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity came to be formulated and the nation-unit is launched on a new path of maturity. Freedom of the nation and battle for freedom, equality and justice marks the third stage of development. Looking towards the future of this third stage, Sri Aurobindo states: “Perhaps liberty and equality, liberty and authority, liberty and organised efficiency can never be quite satisfactorily reconciled so long as man individual and aggregate lives by egoism, so long as he cannot undergo a great spiritual and psychological change and rise beyond mere communal association to that third ideal which some vague inner sense made the revolutionary thinkers of France add to their watchwords of liberty and equality, – the greatest of all the three, though till now only an empty word on man’s lips, the ideal of fraternity or, less sentimentally and more truly expressed, an inner oneness. That no mechanism social, political, religious has ever created or can create; it must take birth in the soul and rise from hidden and divine depths within.”11
This is the stage which is marked by what Sri Aurobindo calls the discovery of the nation soul, and with this discovery there arises the question of relationship among nation-souls and their relationship with the universal-soul. And this question is centrally related to the question of internationalism and universality.
Sri Aurobindo’s Philosophy of Nationalism and Internationalism-III
It is against this background that we can profitably study the development of India as a nation and its nationalism. The evolution of India, according to Sri Aurobindo, gives evidence that the essential nation-unit was already existent presiding over the geographical boundaries ranging from the Himalayas up to the Southern Indian Ocean perceived as Rashtra even by the early Rishis of the Rigveda.12
यस्येमे हिमवन्तो महित्वा यस्य समुद्रं रसया सहाहुः | यस्येमाः प्रदिशो यस्य बाहू कस्मै देवाय हविषा विधेम ||
(Under whose greatness on the one side are the snow peaks of the Himalayas and on the other is the sea with the river-waters, whose both arms are these directions, whom else can we offer our oblations?)
There was indissoluble national vitality necessitating the inevitable and ultimate emergence of the organised nation. Nationunit is basically an expression of a natural psychological unity or of the nation-soul. In the striking example of India’s development, what is remarkable to observe, however, is the operation of centrifugal forces, the character of which was strong, numerous, complex, and obstinate. And yet the centripetal tendency can also be seen right from the earliest times of which we have records and are typified in the ideal of Samarat, Chakravarty Raja and the military and political use of the ashwvamedha and rajsuya sacrifices. Ramayana and Mahabharata, the two great national epics, illustrate this theme. Mahabharata recounts the establishment of a unifying dharmarajya or imperial reign of justice. Ramayana starts with an idealised description of such a rule pictured as one existing in the ancient and sacred past of the country. Subsequent political history of India is marked by a succession of empires, indigenous and foreign, each of them destroyed by centrifugal forces, but each bringing the centripetal tendency nearer to its triumphant emergence. Sri Aurobindo points out that it is a significant circumstance that the more foreign the rule, the greater has been its force for the unification of the subject people.
In the words of Sri Aurobindo:
“In this instance, we see that the conversion of the psychological unity on which nationhood is based into the external organised unity by which it is perfectly realised, has taken a period of more than two thousand years and is not yet complete. And yet, since the essentiality of the thing was there, not even the most formidable difficulties and delays, not even the most persistent incapacity for union in the people, not even the most disintegrating shocks from outside have prevailed against the obstinate subconscious necessity. And this is only the extreme illustration of a general law.”13
Commenting on the emergence of the nationalist movement in India in the early part of the twentieth century, Sri Aurobindo points out that it was a part of a world-wide movement where nations were seen feeling for their source, trying to find them, seriously endeavouring to act from the new sense and make it consciously operative in the common life and action. This tendency was most powerful in new nations or in those struggling to realise themselves in spite of political subjection or defeat. The reason that Sri Aurobindo assigns for this phenomenon is that it is these nations that needed more to feel the difference between themselves and others so that they could assert and justify their individuality as against the powerful super-life which tended to absorb or efface it. And, Sri Aurobindo continues, precisely because their objective life was feeble and it was difficult to affirm it by its own strength in the diverse circumstances, there was more chance of their seeking for their individuality and its forces of self-assertion in that which was subjective and psychological or at least in that which was of subjective or psychological significance.
In the words of Sri Aurobindo:
“The movement of 1905 in Bengal pursued a quite new conception of the nation not merely as a country, but a soul, a psychological, almost a spiritual being and, even when acting from economical and political motives, it sought to dynamise them by this subjective conception.”14
Sri Aurobindo’s Philosophy of Nationalism and Internationalism-IV
The basic ontological foundation of the philosophy of the individual and the aggregate and of nationality and national unity is to be found in Sri Aurobindo’s concept of the reality of the individual spirit and that of the cosmic spirit. According to Sri Aurobindo, the individual is not merely an ephemeral physical creature, a form of mind and body that aggregates and dissolves, but a being, a living power of eternal Truth, a self-manifesting spirit. It is for this reason that Sri Aurobindo points out that the primal law and purpose of the individual life is to seek its own self-development, to find itself, to discover within itself the law and power of its own being and to fulfil it.
In the same way, society, community or nation is also a being, a living power of the eternal Truth, a self-manifestation of the cosmic Spirit, and it is there to express and fulfil in its own way and to the degree of its capacities the special truth and power and meaning of the cosmic Spirit that is within it. It is for this reason, Sri Aurobindo observes, that the primal law and a purpose of the society, community or nation is to seek its own self-fulfilment; it strives rightly to find itself, to become aware within itself of the law and power of its own being and fulfil it as perfectly as possible, to realise all its potentialities, to live its own self-revealing life. The interrelationship between the individual and the nation can therefore be harmonised when there is a surge and discovery both of the individual and of the nation as also of the nations of their inner souls and the process of finding in these souls the secret of their true development and their drift towards progressive perfection.
Sri Aurobindo sees in the heart of the nationalist movement of India and in the attainment of freedom for India a great possibility of opening a new age in which India can, because of its treasures of spiritual knowledge, discover further secrets whereby Spirit and Matter can be synthesised, and the luminous knowledge of the spirit can illumine and transform the physical life of the earth. India has also the possibility of becoming a pioneering partner in the task of formulating new forms of the largest aggregate in which each nation can relate itself with other nations and bring about a harmonious world-unity in which ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity can find their progressive harmony and fulfilment.
Sri Aurobindo’s Philosophy of Nationalism and Internationalism-V
There is today much contest in respect of the concept of nation and nationalism, and it is even sometimes suggested that in the coming days of internationalism, globalisation and larger aggregation in the formation of a possible world union, nations and nationalities will be overpassed and the world will enter into post-national stage of existence. This debate and conclusion need to be considered seriously in the light of the real truth of the philosophical foundation of nationalism, Indian nationalism and its possible future. Sri Aurobindo makes an important distinction between political unity and real unity, and pointing out the fact that the world history shows that there was in the ancient cycle of development a wide pre-national empire building, which is in contrast to modern cycle of nation-building. In other words, empires have been created in the past, indicating the tendency to overshoot nation-units even before they attain any maturity or stability, and that this shows that a nation is not a final unit of aggregation. But at the same time, Sri Aurobindo points out that although empires have exhibited political unity, they have not shown to have in them the force of real unity.
He states:
“Empires exist, but they are as yet only political and not real units; they have no life from within and owe their continuance to a force imposed on their constituent elements or else to a political convenience felt or acquiesce in by the constituents and favoured by the world outside. … If the political convenience of an empire of this kind ceases, if the constituent elements no longer acquiesce and are drawn more powerfully by a centrifugal force, if at the same time the world outside no longer favours the combination, then force alone remains as the one agent of an artificial unity.”15
Empires are, according to Sri Aurobindo, perishable political unities, in contrast to the nation, a real unity, which is immortal and which will remain so until a greater living unit can be found into which nation idea can merge in obedience to a superior attraction.
Again, dwelling upon the distinction between political unity and real unity, Sri Aurobindo states that this distinction must be made because “it is of the greatest utility to a true and profound political science and involves the most important consequences. When an empire like Austria, a non-national empire, is broken to pieces, it perishes for good; there is no innate tendency to recover the outward unity, because there is no real inner oneness; there is only a politically manufactured aggregate. On the other hand, a real national unity broken up by circumstances will always preserve a tendency to recover and reassert its oneness.”16
Sri Aurobindo has given the example of the Greek Empire which has gone the way of all empires, but the Greek nation after many centuries of political non-existence, again possesses its separate body, because it has preserved its separate ego and therefore really existed under the covering rule of the Turk. Similar is the example of Italy and in the example of Germany. In all these cases, as was in many others, the unification of Saxon England, medieval France, the formation of the United States of America, Sri Aurobindo points out that there was a real unity, a psychological distinct unit which tended at first ignorantly by the subconscious necessity of its being and afterwards with a sudden or gradual awakening to the sense of political oneness, towards an inevitable external unification. It is, Sri Aurobindo concludes, a distinct group-soul which is driven by inward necessity and uses outward circumstances to constitute for itself an organised body.
Just as the individual is an ontological Spirit, and therefore it can never be reduced to become a mere cog in a machine, even so nation is a living spirit and soul, and therefore it can never permanently be reduced to a status of a mere province of larger and largest aggregates. At the same time, Sri Aurobindo underlines the fact that humanity is turning today towards world unity, and the central problem for the human endeavour in this connection will be as to how the nation will adjust itself to the pressure of the forces that are today creating phenomena which are global, world-wide and planetary in character.
In this connection, Sri Aurobindo makes a distinction between national ego and national soul, corresponding to the distinction in regard to the individual life where the superficial ego is seen to be distinct from the true individual soul. The mark of egoism, according to Sri Aurobindo, is its superficiality and its ignorant attempt to arrive at superficial unity whether that ego is individual or national. The mark of the ego is its sense of division from all the rest, its pretension to be entirely independent in a poise of superiority over all the others. Corresponding to this ego, Sri Aurobindo points out, there is no real reality. There is no ontological superficial reality, there is no independent divided entity which is superior to all the rest. The true individual, on the other hand, has indeed distinctiveness, but is not divided from the others. The true individual and the true nation-soul are characterised by mutuality, interdependence and inner oneness that manifests in diversity. Based upon this philosophical foundation, Sri Aurobindo perceives the future of nations as entities seeking and finding their inner souls by virtue of which they will remain free but mutually interdependent, and this, in turn, will provide the form of world unity that is supportive and not destructive of the nations. Sri Aurobindo speaks of a world union of free nations, each having status of equality, and all contributing through their distinctive capacities to the fund of richness and variety at the global level.
Sri Aurobindo formulates therefore an ideal law of social development in which the truths of the individual, of the nations and of humanity are all reconciled and synthesised. This is the law as he has formulated:
“Thus the law for the individual is to perfect his individuality by free development from within, but to respect and to aid and be aided by the same free development in others. His law is to harmonise his life with the life of the social aggregate and to pour himself out as a force for growth and perfection on humanity. The law for the community or nation is equally to perfect its corporate existence by a free development from within, aiding and taking full advantage of that of the individual, but to respect and to aid and be aided by the same free development of other communities and nations. Its law is to harmonise its life with that of the human aggregate and to pour itself out as a force for growth and perfection on humanity. The law for humanity is to pursue its upward evolution towards the finding and expression of the Divine in the type of mankind, taking full advantage of the free development and gains of all individuals and nations and groupings of men, to work towards the day when mankind may be really and not only ideally one divine family, but even then, when it has succeeded in unifying itself, to respect, aid and be aided by the free growth and activity of its individuals and constituent aggregates.”17
Sri Aurobindo’s Philosophy of Nationalism and Internationalism-VI
It can be said that the fulfilment of this ideal law of social or national development is the task that still remains to be fulfilled. In this task, Indian nationalism can play a leading role. But before that task can be fulfilled, there are still some others which need to be initiated and developed. Sri Aurobindo has spoken of three aims that free India should concentrate the cycle of the occident’s success and failure, but still the ancient memorable Shakti recovering her deepest self, lifting her head higher towards the supreme source of light and strength and turning to discover the complete meaning and a vaster form of her Dharma.”18
Notes
Sri Aurobindo, Bande Mataram - II: The Foundations of Nationality
↩Sri Aurobindo, Bande Mataram - I: Nationalism, Not Extremism
↩Sri Aurobindo, Bande Mataram - II: Swaraj
↩Sri Aurobindo, Bande Mataram - II: Swaraj
↩Sri Aurobindo, Bande Mataram - II: Swaraj and the Coming Anarchy
↩Sri Aurobindo, Bande Mataram - I: The Doctrine of Passive Resistance - Its Necessity
↩Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita: Kurukshetra
↩Sri Aurobindo, Bande Mataram - II: The Voice of the Martyrs
↩Sri Aurobindo, Bande Mataram - II: The Foundations of Nationality
↩Sri Aurobindo, Bande Mataram - II: The Foundations of Nationality
↩Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle: The Formation of the Nation-Unit - The Three Stages
↩See, for instance, Rigveda, X.121.4:
↩Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle: Nation and Empire: Real and Political Unities
↩Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle: The Discovery of the Nation-Soul
↩Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle: Nation and Empire: Real and Political Unities
↩Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle: Nation and Empire: Real and Political Unities
↩Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle: The Ideal Law of Social Development
↩Sri Aurobindo, The Renaissance in India: Indian Polity - IV
↩