Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume 4
In all this imbroglio about the book on Subhash, one thing is positive that I never gave any such order and it ought to have been evident to everybody that I could not have done it since I permitted the publication of your book and the prohibition of it would have been too outrageous a self-contradiction to be even thinkable. About another thing the Mother is equally positive that she never gave or intended to give such an order. When I told her that you wanted to go away and that it was on account of the affair about the book on Subhash she was evidently bewildered and asked what connection there could be between the two things; when I told her the story of the alleged prohibition she was equally astonished and broke out, “T! I never gave such an order!” Another thing is clear that the story about your book and Hitler’s Mein Kampf being coupled together by the Mother is a myth.
Premananda1 misunderstood something said by Prithwi Singh and so the story got about; Prithwi Singh says he never said that the Mother had spoken about Mein Kampf; it was he himself who mentioned about Mein Kampf and that not coupling it with your book but merely as an instance of a book being kept aside and not issued; so that is that. Nobody received any order direct from the Mother, except that Nolini misunderstood her as having told him not to issue the book. He said he asked her about issuing it and she said, “No.” But the Mother has no recollection even of being told of your book having already come to the library, much less being consulted about it; she certainly never said anything intended as an order about it. If she had wished to do that, she certainly would not have made such an order without consulting me, never even telling me about it; that is impossible. So there must have been a lack of understanding on the one side of the nature of the question put and on the other side of the meaning and relevance of the answer: when both were pressed for time, that has happened often enough in other matters.
Behind all that there is an old story which may account for everything. You will remember that both the Mother and I were very angry against Subhash for having brought the Japanese into India and reproached him with it as a treason and crime against the Motherland. For if they had got in, it would have been almost impossible to get them out. The Mother knows the Japanese nation well and was positive about that. Okawa, the leader of the Black Dragon (the one who shammed mad and got off at the Tokyo trial) told her that if India revolted against the British, Japan would send her Navy to help, but he said that he would not like the Japanese to land because if they once got hold of Indian soil they would never leave it, and it was true enough. If the Japanese had overrun India, and they would have done it if a powerful Divine intervention had not prevented it and turned the tables on them, they would have joined the Germans in Mesopotamia and the Caucasus and nothing could have saved Europe and Asia from being overrun. This would have meant the destruction of our work and a horrible fate for this country and for the world. You can understand therefore the bitterness of our feelings at that time against Subhash and his association with the Axis and the disaster to his country for which he would have been responsible.
Incidentally, instead of being liberated in 1948, India would have had to spend a century or several centuries in a renewed servitude. When therefore the Mother heard that you were writing a book eulogising Subhash, she disapproved strongly of any such thing issuing out of the Ashram and she wanted that you should be asked not to publish it. Our views about Subhash were known all over the Ashram and the Mother’s disapproval of the book must also have got known to many. About that time Baron came, you told him of your book and he was very much alarmed at any eulogy of Subhash coming from the Ashram and was afraid that the British Government would be in a fury and would do something about it: he spoke of this to the Mother and said that he was inviting you to dinner and would take the opportunity to discuss the whole thing with you. It must have dropped out of his memory almost immediately or perhaps he felt that his apprehension was exaggerated, for he said nothing more afterwards about it. Mother says it is possible that at that time she told Nolini that it might be better if the book was not issued or sold from the Ashram but she spoke to me about the whole affair and I told her that I did not think any harm would result under the changed circumstances and for that reason it would be better to let you follow your feelings and not ask you to refrain from publication. Mother accepted this though she still did not like the idea of the book. Subsequently she met one of the chief lieutenants of Subhash, a man from Hyderabad who had been his secretary and companion in the submarine by which he came from Germany to Japan, and he recounted his daily talks in the submarine and strongly defended his action. From what he said it was evident, although we still regarded Subhash’s action as a reckless and dangerous folly, that the aspect of a crime against the country disappeared from it. Since then Mother modified her attitude towards Subhash; moreover, the war was receding into the past and there was no longer any room for the poignancy of the feeling it had raised and it was better that all that should be forgotten. But although almost a year had passed, the impressions made at that time have remained in the minds of many and account for the attitude of Nolini and Prithwi Singh to your book and must also be the psychological source of Nolini’s misunderstanding about the supposed order.
We regret that a blow should have fallen on you and the pain accompanying it when no blow was really given or intended. Anyhow, the matter has been rectified; the library has been informed that there has been a misunderstanding, no prohibition was actually made and the book must be issued to sadhaks.