On
the War: An Unreleased Statement1Sri Aurobindo
Autobiographical Notes
and Other Writings of Historical Interest
Part Three. On Indian and World Events 1940–1950
1. Public Statements, Messages, Letters and Telegrams
On the Second World War 1940–1943
On
the War: An Unreleased Statement1
Sri Aurobindo’s decision to give his moral support to the struggle against Hitler, which was made at the very beginning of the war, was based like all his actions on his inner view of things and on intimations from within. It was founded on his consciousness of the forces at work, of their significance in the Divine’s leading of the world, of the necessary outer conditions for the spiritual development in which he sees the real hope of humanity. It would not serve any purpose to speak here of this view of things: but some outer considerations of a most material kind easily understandable by everyone can be put forward which might help to explain his action to the general mind, although they do not give the whole meaning of it; it is only these that are developed here.
The struggle that is going on is not fundamentally a conflict between two imperialisms – German and English,– one attacking, the other defending itself. That is only an outward aspect, and not the whole even of the outward aspect. For the Germans and Italians believe that they are establishing a new civilisation and a new world-order. The English believe that they are defending not only their empire but their very existence as a free nation and the freedom also of other nations conquered by Germany or threatened by the push to empire of the Axis powers; they have made it a condition for making peace that the nations conquered shall be liberated and the others guaranteed against farther aggression. They believe also that they are standing up for the principles of civilisation which a Nazi victory would destroy. These beliefs have to be taken into consideration in assessing the significance of the struggle.
It is in fact a clash between two world-forces which
are contending for the control of the whole future of humanity. One 
force seeks to destroy the past civilisation and substitute a new
one; but this new civilisation is in substance a reversion to the old principles
of dominant Force and a rigid external order and denies the established values,
social, political, ethical, spiritual, altogether. Among these values are those
which were hitherto held to be the most precious, the liberty of the individual,
the right to national liberty, freedom of thought; even religious liberty is to
be crushed and replaced by the subjection of religion to State control. The new
ethics contemn and reject all the principles that can be summed up in the word
“humanitarianism”; all that is to it a falsehood and a weakness. The only
ethical values admitted are those of dominant Force on the one side and, on the
other, of blind obedience and submission, self-effacement and labour in the
service of the State. Wherever this new idea conquers or can make its power
felt, it is this order of things that it seeks to establish; it is not satisfied
with setting itself up in one country or another, it is pushing for world
conquest, for the enforcement of the new order everywhere, securing it,– this at
least Germany, its principal agent, conceives to be the right method and carries
it out with a scientific thoroughness by a ruthless repression of all opposition
and a single iron rule.
The other Force is that of the evolutionary tendencies
which have been directing the course of humanity for some time past and, till
recently, seemed destined to shape its future. Its workings had their good and
bad sides, but among the greater values it had developed stood the very things
against which the new Force is most aggressive, the liberty of the individual,
national liberty, freedom of thought, political and social freedom with an
increasing bent towards equality, complete religious liberty, the humanitarian
principle with all its consequences and, latterly, a seeking after a more
complete social order, which will organise the life of the community, but will
respect the liberty of the individual while perfecting his means of life and
helping in every way possible his development. This evolutionary world-force has
not been perfect in its action, its working is still partial and incomplete: it
contains many strong survivals from the past which have to disappear; it has, on
the other hand, lost 
or diminished some
spiritual elements of a past human culture which ought to recover or survive.
There are still many denials of national freedom and of the other principles
which are yet admitted as the ideal to be put in practice. In the working of
that force as represented by Britain and other democracies there may not be
anywhere full individual freedom or full national liberty. But the movement has
been more and more towards a greater development of these things and, if this
evolutionary force still remains dominant, their complete development is
inevitable.
Neither of these forces are altogether what we need for the future. There are ideas and elements in the first which may have their separate value in a total human movement; but on the whole, in system and in practice, its gospel is a worship of Force and its effect is the rule of a brutal and pitiless violence, the repression of the individual, not only a fierce repression but a savage extinction of all that opposes or differs from it, the suppression of all freedom of thought, an interference with religious belief and freedom of spiritual life and, in an extreme tendency, the deliberate will to “liquidate” all forms of religion and spirituality. On the side of the other more progressive force there are, often, a limited view, grievous defects of practice, an undue clinging to the past, a frequent violation of the ideal; but at the same time the necessary elements and many of the necessary conditions of progress are there, a tendency towards an enlargement of the human mind and spirit, towards an increasing idealism in the relation of men with men and of nation with nation and a tolerant and humane mentality. Both are, at present, or have been largely materialistic in their thought, but the difference is between a materialism that suppresses the spirit and a materialism that tolerates it and leaves room for its growth if it can affirm its strength to survive and conquer.
At present the balance in the development of human
thought and action has been turning for some time against the larger
evolutionary force and in favour of a revolutionary reaction against it. This
reaction is now represented by totalitarian governments and societies, the other
tendency by the democracies; 
but democracy is
on the wane everywhere in Europe, the totalitarian idea was gaining ground on
all sides even before the war. Now with Hitler as its chief representative, this
Force has thrown itself out for world-domination. Everywhere the results are the
same, the disappearance of individual and national liberty, a rigid “New Order”,
the total suppression of free thought and speech, a systematic cruelty and
intolerance, the persecution of all opposition, and, wherever the Nazi idea
spreads, a violent racialism denying the human idea; outside Europe what is
promised is the degradation of the coloured peoples to helotry as an inferior,
even a subhuman race. Hitler, carrying with him everywhere the new idea and the
new order, is now master of almost all Europe minus Great Britain and Russia.
[Faced with the stubborn opposition of Britain he is turning southwards and if
the plan attributed to him of taking Gibraltar and the Suez Canal and forcing
the British fleet out of the Mediterranean and its coasts were to succeed, he
would be able with his Italian]2
ally to dominate Africa also and to turn towards Asia, through Syria and
Palestine. There [ ]3 would be then nothing that could
stand in his way except Russia; but Russia has helped his projects by her
attitude and seems in no mood to oppose him. The independence of the peoples of
the Middle East and Central Asia would disappear as the independence of so many
European nations has disappeared and a deadly and imminent peril would stand at
the gates of India.
These are patent facts of the situation, its dangerous
possibilities and menacing consequences. What is there that can prevent them
from coming into realisation? The only material force that now stands between is
the obstinate and heroic resistance of Great Britain and her fixed determination
to fight the battle to the end. It is the British Navy alone that keeps the war
from our gates and confines it to European lands and seas and a strip of North
Africa. If there were defeat and the strength of Britain and her colonies were
to go down before the totalitarian nations, 
all
Europe, Africa and Asia would be doomed to domination by three or four Powers
all anti-democratic and all pushing for expansion, powers with regimes and
theories of life which take no account of liberty of any kind; the surviving
democracies would perish, nor would any free government with free institutions
be any longer possible anywhere. It is not likely that India poor and ill-armed
would be able to resist forces which had brought down the great nations of
Europe; her chance of gaining the liberty which is now so close to her would
disappear for a long time to come. On the contrary, if the victory goes to
Britain, the situation will be reversed, the progressive evolutionary forces
will triumph and the field will lie open for the fulfilment of the tendencies
which were making India’s full control of her own life a certainty of the near
future.
It is hardly possible that after the war the old order
of things can survive unchanged; if that happened, there would again be a
repetition of unrest, chaos, economic disorder and armed strife till the
necessary change is made. The reason is that the life of mankind has become in
fact a large though loosely complex unit and a world-order recognising this fact
is inevitable. It is ceasing to be possible for national egoisms to entrench
themselves in their isolated independence and be sufficient for themselves, for
all are now dependent on the whole. The professed separate self-sufficiency of
Germany ended in a push for life-room which threatens all other peoples; nations
which tried to isolate themselves in a self-regarding neutrality have paid the
penalty of their blindness and the others who still maintain that attitude are
likely sooner or later to share the same fate; either they must become the
slaves or subservient vassals of three or four greater Powers, or a world-order
must be found in which all can be safe in their freedom and yet united for the
common good. It will be well for India, if in spite of the absorption of her
pressing need, she recognises that national egoism is no longer sufficient. She
must claim freedom and equality for herself in whatever new order is to come or
any post-war arrangement, but recognise also that the international idea and its
realisation are something that is becoming equally insistent, necessary and 
inevitable. If the totalitarian Powers win, there will indeed be a
new world-order,– it may be in the end, a unification; but it will be a new
order of naked brute Force, repression and exploitation, and for the people of
Asia and Africa a subjection worse than anything they had experienced before.
This has been recognised even by the Arabs who were fighting England in
Palestine before the war; they have turned to her side. Not only Europe, Asia
and Africa, but distant America with all her power and resources is no longer
safe, and she has shown that she knows it; she has felt the peril and is arming
herself in haste to meet it. In the other contingency, there will be not only
the necessity for a freer new order, but every possibility of its formation; for
the idea is growing; it is already recognised as an actual programme by advanced
progressive forces in England and elsewhere. It may not be likely that it will
materialise at once or that it will be perfect when it comes, but it is bound to
take some kind of initial shape as an eventual result in the not distant future.
These are some of the more obvious external considerations which have taken form in Sri Aurobindo’s contribution to the War Fund accompanied by his letter. It is a simple recognition of the fact that the victory of Great Britain in this war is not only to the interest of the whole of humanity including India, but necessary for the safeguarding of its future. If that is so, the obligation of at least a complete moral support follows as a necessary consequence.
It is objected that Britain has refused freedom to
India and that therefore no Indian should support her in the War. The answer
arises inevitably from the considerations stated above. The dominant need for
India and the World is to survive the tremendous attack of Asuric Force which is
now sweeping over the earth. The freedom of India, in whatever form, will be a
consequence of that victory. The working towards freedom was clear already in
the world and in the British Empire itself before the War; Eire, Egypt had
gained their independence, Iraq had been granted hers; many free nationalities
had arisen in Europe and Asia; India herself was drawing nearer to her goal and
the 
attainment of it was coming to be
recognised as inevitable. If the totalitarian new order extends over Asia, all
that will disappear; the whole work done will be undone. If there is the
opposite result, nothing can prevent India attaining to the object of her
aspirations; even if restrictions are put upon the national self-government that
is bound to come, they cannot last for long. In any case, there is no moral
incompatibility between India’s claim to freedom and support to Britain in the
struggle against Hitler, since it would be a support given for the preservation
of her own chance of complete liberty and the preservation also of three
continents or even of the whole earth from a heavy yoke of servitude.
There remains the objection that all War is evil and no
war can be supported; soul-force or some kind of spiritual or ethical force is
the only force that should be used; the only resistance permissible is passive
resistance, non-cooperation or Satyagraha. But this kind of resistance though it
has been used in the past with some effect by individuals or on a limited scale,
cannot stop the invasion of a foreign army, least of all, a Nazi army, or expel
it, once it is inside and in possession; it can at most be used as a means of
opposition to an already established oppressive rule. The question then arises
whether a nation can be asked to undergo voluntarily the menace of a foreign
invasion or the scourge of a foreign occupation without using whatever material
means of resistance are available. It is also a question whether any nation in
the world is capable of this kind of resistance long-enduring and wholesale or
is sufficiently developed ethically and spiritually to satisfy the conditions
which would make it successful, especially against an organised and ruthless
military oppression such as the Nazi rule; at any rate it is permissible not to
wish to risk the adventure so long as there is another choice. War is physically
an evil, a calamity; morally it has been like most human institutions a mixture,
in most but not all cases a mixture of some good and much evil: but it is
sometimes necessary to face it rather than invite or undergo a worse evil, a
greater calamity. One can hold that, so long as life and mankind are what they
are, there can be such a thing as a righteous war,– dharmya 
yuddha. No doubt, in a spiritualised life of humanity or in a
perfect civilisation there would be no room for war or violence,– it is clear
that this is the highest ideal state. But mankind is psychologically and
materially still far from this ideal state. To bring it to that state needs
either an immediate spiritual change of which there is no present evidence or a
change of mentality and habits which the victory of the totalitarian idea and
its system would render impossible; for it would impose quite the opposite
mentality, the mentality and habits on one side of a dominant brute force and
violence and on the other a servile and prostrate non-resistance.
1940
1 On 23 September 1940, Anilbaran Roy wrote an article defending Sri Aurobindo’s position on the war as set forth in the letter of 19 September. He submitted his article to Sri Aurobindo, who thoroughly revised and enlarged Sri Aurobindo thoroughly revised and enlarged the first four paragraphs and added seven new ones, transforming Anilbaran’s essay into an entirely new piece that may be considered his own writing. In revising, he retained Anilbaran’s third-person “Sri Aurobindo”. Sri Aurobindo had his secretary make a typed copy of the enlarged piece, which he further revised, but he does not seem to have shown the result to anyone, and it remained unpublished during his lifetime.
2 Sri Aurobindo cancelled the bracketed passage during revision but did not write anything to replace it. – Ed.
3 MS there