Sri Aurobindo
Autobiographical Notes
and Other Writings of Historical Interest
Part Two. Letters of Historical Interest
1. Letters on Personal, Practical and Political Matters
(1890–1926)
Open Letters. Published in Newspapers 1909–1925
To the Editor of the Hindu [4]1
Babu Aurobindo Ghose.
Babu Aurobindo Ghose writes to us from Pondicherry: –
In continuation of my last letter, I proceed to deal
with the allegation that I “continue to direct Anarchist activities from
Pondicherry,” an allegation self-condemned by the gross implied 
imputation of a charge from which I have been exonerated by British
tribunals. Here too a simple statement of facts will be the best answer. My
political conduct has been four times under scrutiny by different tribunals and
each time the result has been favourable to me. I have been twice accused of
sedition. In the first case I was charged, not as responsible for the editorial
columns of the “Bande Mataram,” which were never impugned as infringing the law
while I was connected with the paper, but for a stray correspondence and a
technical violation of the law by the reproduction of articles in connection
with a sedition case; my freedom from responsibility was overwhelmingly
established by the prosecution evidence itself, the only witness to the
contrary, a dismissed proof-reader picked up by the police, destroying his own
evidence in cross examination. In the second, an article over my signature was
somewhat hastily impugned by the authorities and declared inoffensive by the
highest tribunal in the land. The article was so clearly unexceptionable on the
face of it that the judges had to open the hearing of the appeal by expressing
their inability to find the sedition alleged! My name has been brought twice
into conspiracy trials. In the Alipur Case, after a protracted trial and
detention in jail for a year, I was acquitted, the Judge condemning the document
which was the only substantial evidence of a guilty connection. Finally, my name
was dragged prominently into the Howrah Case by an approver whose evidence was
declared by three High Court Judges to be utterly unreliable,– a man, I may add,
of whose very name and existence I was ignorant till his arrest at Darjeeling. I
think I am entitled to emphasise the flimsy grounds on which in all the cases
proceedings originated, so far as I was concerned. Even in the Alipur trial,
beyond an unverified information and the facts that my brother was the leader of
the conspiracy and frequented my house, there was no original ground for
involving me in the legal proceedings. After so many ordeals, I may claim that
up to my cessation of political activity my public record stands absolved from
blame.
I left British India in order to pursue my practice of
Yoga undisturbed either by my old political connections or by the 
harassment of me which seemed to have become a necessity of life to
some police officials. Ceasing to be a political combatant, I could not hold
myself bound to pass the better part of my life as an undertrial prisoner
disproving charge after charge made on tainted evidence too lightly accepted by
prejudiced minds. Before discontinuing activity myself I advised my brother
Nationalists to abstain under the new conditions from uselessly hampering the
Government experiment of coercion and reform and wasting their own strength by
the continuance of their old activities, and it is well known, to use the
language of the Madras Times, that I have myself observed this rule to
the letter in Pondicherry. I have practised an absolute political passivity. I
have discountenanced any idea of carrying on propaganda from British India,
giving all who consulted me the one advice, “Wait for better times and God’s
will.” I have strongly and repeatedly expressed myself against the circulation
of inflammatory literature and against all wild ideas and reckless methods as a
stumbling block in the way of the future resumption of sound, effective and
perfect action for the welfare of the country. These facts are a sufficient
answer to the vague and reckless libel circulated against me. I propose,
however, with your indulgence, to make shortly so clear an exposition of my
views and intentions for the future as will leave misrepresentation henceforward
no possible character but that of a wanton libel meriting only the silence of
contempt.
published 21 July 1911