Remembering Sri Aurobindo Ghosh
A crisp memoir about Sri Aurobindo
“More I will not ask of thee,
Nor my fate would choose;
King or conquered let me be,
Live or lose.”
August 15th 2022- This day marks the 150th birth anniversary of Sri Aurobindo: an aggressive Indian militant, a multifaceted personality and a spiritual reformer.
He was born in Calcutta in a Hindu Bengali family to Sri Krishnadhan Ghosh, an ardent admirer of European culture and Mata Swarnalatha Debi, daughter of an Indian Vedantic scholar. Sri Krishnadhan Ghosh was very keen on secluding his children from the influence of Indian culture. He sent little Aurobindo and his brothers to England for their education. Aurobindo studied in St. Paul’s school, London. After school, he secured his scholarship at King’s college, Cambridge and pursued his studies there for two years. Though Aurobindo was physically separated from his motherland, his heart and soul was burning with the ambition to set Hindusthan free from the clutches of British. In England, he joined a secret society called ‘Lotus and Dagger’, who vowed to wipe out the tyrannical British rule in India.
After returning to motherland, Aurobindo joined the Baroda State Service upon the persuasion of Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad of Baroda but he could not continue there for a longer time, as he desperately wanted to partake in the Nationalists’ struggle against the British imperialism. At that point of time, the entire nation was fuming over the decision to partition the Bengal || Let us pause here and take a quick look at the scenario ‘ before the Partition of Bengal’.
Before the beginning of 20th century itself, Swami Vivekananda had been influencing the masses by his electrifying speeches. The elder generation people of Tagore family had been endorsing the indigenous Swadeshi products and instigating the sense of national pride among the people dwelling in the neighborhoods in Calcutta through ‘Hindu Mela’. Calcutta was then the national capital of India. British would have never imagined even in their deadliest dreams that Calcutta would become a hub of revolutionary activities. The Bengali Hindus, who were the majority in the undivided Bengal, were already ignited by the Hindu revival movements and they were fiercely in love with their motherland & its priceless cultural values. This irked and intimidated the British. They thought this might be a stumbling block to the functioning of British Monarchy in India. To put an end to this, Lord Curzon used Nawab Salimullah of Dacca as a pawn to execute the plan of partitioning Bengal into two provinces; both of these provinces would have Hindus as minorities (Now do you understand the reason behind the current plight of Hindus in West Bengal and Bangladesh? ). Aurobindo and many other nationalists vehemently opposed the idea of partitioning Bengal.
Aurobindo had strong organizational and leadership skills. He brought many revolutionary people into liaison & worked towards building a strong militant force to fight against the British Raj. He was not much convinced by the Moderates’ approach and so he backed the Extremists trio(Lal-Bal-Pal). He worked as the Chief-editor of ‘Bande Mataram’, an English weekly newspaper publication established by Bipin Chandra Pal. Aurobindo was writing fierce and bold articles, attacking the British Raj and its anti-Indian strategies.
However, after the period of solitary confinement due to Alipore Bomb case, Sri Aurobindo quit politics. He went to Pondicherry and founded Aurobindo Ashram. He devised the concept of Integral yoga and was completely engrossed in inner spiritual quest till his last breath.
Like Lord Krishna in Mahabharatha, Aurobindo always preferred to work behind the screen. Tagore was completely impressed by Sri Aurobindo’s intiatives to liberate the country and regarded him as the ‘Messiah of Indian culture and civilisation’. Who knows, Sri Aurobindo might be the incarnation of Krishna Paramatma in 19th century. No one can understand the life of Sri Aurobindo, unless we try to study it through the lens of mysticism.
“Even in rags I am a god;
Fallen, I am divine;
High I triumph when down-trod,
Long I live when slain.”
P.S: I accessed multiple resources in Google and took inputs for this article. I would like to highlight a few among them,
1) http://magazines.odisha.gov.in/Orissareview/2008/November-2008/engpdf/26-27.pdf
3) https://www.sriaurobindoashram.org/sriaurobindo/
4) https://siddharthmistry.blogspot.com/2018/09/life.html
7) Auroville/ Aurobindo Ashram’s portals
8) Wiki pages pertaining to Sri Aurobindo and his life.
