Sri Aurobindo

Autobiographical Notes

and Other Writings of Historical Interest

Part One. Autobiographical Notes

2. Sri Aurobindo’s corrections of statements in a proposed biography

Political Life, 1893–1910

The Open Letters of July and December 1909

[Sri Aurobindo’s “Open Letter to My Countrymen” of July 1909 and the second open letter dated December 1909]

There is some confusion here and generally with regard to the two letters. Sri Aurobindo was not relying upon any change in Government policy for the effect of the first letter.¹ He writes clearly that the proposed reforms were false and unreal and not acceptable. All he says is that if real reforms giving real power or control were offered, even if they gave only partial and not complete self-government then the Nationalist Party might accept them as the means towards complete Self-Government. Till then the Nationalists would maintain the struggle and their policy of non-cooperation and passive resistance. He relied not upon this but upon an intuitive perception that the Government would not think it politic or useful to deport him if he left a programme which others could carry out in his absence. Also the considerations about Home Rule and complete passive resistance had no connection with the first letter, because they did not occur to Sri Aurobindo at the time. It was afterwards about the period of the second signed letter² that he weighed the circumstances and the situation in the country and considered whether it would not be necessary for a time to draw back a little in order to make a continued political action possible, reculer pour mieux sauter, as the national movement seemed otherwise threatened with a complete pause. A Home Rule movement or a movement of the South African type suggested themselves to him and he foresaw that they might be resorted to in the near future; but he decided that such movements were not for him to lead and that he must go on with the movement for independence as it was. In the second letter also he rejects the reforms as inadequate and advocates a continuance and reorganisation of the Nationalist movement.³] This was on December 25^th, five months after the first letter. Sri Aurobindo does not understand the reference to the coup de force and the stratagem; if by the coup de force is meant the proposed search and arrest, that was undertaken in connection with and as a result of the second letter which was to be made the subject of a prosecution. As Sri Aurobindo went to Chandernagore and disappeared from view the search was not made and the warrant was held back and the prosecution postponed till he should again reappear. This happened in February, a month or more after the appearance of the second letter. Sri Aurobindo wanted the police to disclose their hand and act and the stratagem he wrote about was an answer to a letter forwarded to him at Chandernagore which he knew to be from a police spy asking him to reappear and face his trial. He replied that he had no reason to do so as there was no public warrant against him and no prosecution had been announced; he thought this would have the effect of the police coming out into the open with a warrant and prosecution and in fact it had this effect.

¹ “An Open Letter to My Countrymen”, Karmayogin, 31 July 1909; reproduced in Karmayogin: Political Writings and Speeches 1909–1910, Volume 8 of The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, pp. 150–60.

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² “To My Countrymen”, Karmayogin, 25 December 1909; reproduced in Karmayogin: Political Writings and Speeches 1909–1910, pp. 372–76. – Ed.

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³ Sri Aurobindo would have accepted Diarchy as a step if it had given a genuine control. It was not till Provincial Autonomy was conceded that he felt a real change in the British attitude had begun; the Cripps offer he accepted as a further progress in that change and the final culmination in the Labour Government’s new policy as its culmination. [Sri Aurobindo’s note.

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