12 Jun 2016

Sri Aurobindo's Response to K.R. Kripalani's Article on the Swadeshi Movement

Did you enjoy the article “Fifty Years of Growth” by K. R. Kripalani in the Visva-Bharati?[i] Fifty years of growth refers by the way to the Congress. About the Swadeshi period he writes: “Along time was to elapse before we were to appreciate the infinite possibilities of the muddy waters at hand. In the meantime something startlingly romantic happened. . . .

“The fountain [of undefiled water] was cut by the fiery shafts of Tilak, Vivekananda, and Aurobindo, among others. They gave to Indian Nationalism its fiery basis in India’s ancient cultural glory and its modern mission. . . . It is always more beautiful and more inspiring to contemplate the Idea  and be drunk with it than to face the actual facts and touch the running sores. . . .

“But this spirit, fiery and beautiful as it was, was fraught with grave dangers. The glory that it invoked and the passion that it aroused were so intensely Hindu that Muslims were automatically left out. Not that they were deliberately excluded. . . . However that may be, it seems now not unlikely that had the influence of Tilak and Aurobindo lasted in its original intensity, we might have had two Indias today— a Hindu-istan and a Pak-istan, both overlaying and undermining each other. . . .
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