Revivalism and Secularism – by Amal Kiran

[This article was published in the “Mother India” issue of 14 October 1950. How relevant it is even today!]

For a number of days after the election of Purushottamdas Tandon to the Congress Presidentship the talk of the whole nation turned on Congress’s future policy under the direction of the new President. Perhaps feelings ran high more about the issue of the Secular State and the question came to the fore: Should our country, with its huge Hindu majority, be revivalist or, because of its multi-communal character, secular?

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Amal Kiran on Sri Aurobindo's Adesh (republished)

SRI AUROBINDO, PARTHASARATHY IYENGAR AND PONDICHERRY

[For those who have publicly displayed their spiritual insensitivity and ignorance of the facts relating to Sri Aurobindo’s life, Amal Kiran’s article should be an eye-opener. The article was first published in the Mother India issue of May 1988, pp. 305-310 and later in Aspects of Sri Aurobindo (2000), pp. 196-204. It is a rejoinder to Peter Heehs’ interpretation of the Adesh (divine command) that Sri Aurobindo received in 1910 to go from Calcutta to Chandernagore, and then from there to Pondicherry. The discussion is subtle and abstract and even Amal Kiran says that at first he “was inclined to agree broadly” with Heehs. But he changed his mind “on a closer inspection” when he realised the deeper implications of the author’s presentation of the event in the Archives & Research issue of December 1987. For the consequences of whether you agree or not with Heehs’ presentation (as also in the recent case of his book) are tremendous. Either you conclude that Sri Aurobindo ran away in fear of being arrested by the British police or that the Divine commanded him to escape in order to make him undertake in Pondicherry the much greater work of the supramental transformation, of which he was perhaps not aware at that point of time. In both cases, the outer actions remain the same, but the motivations behind become totally different.]

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A Defence of Hinduism – by Amal Kiran

[Article approved by Sri Aurobindo and first published in Mother India on May 27, 1950]

Recently a well-known leader of the scheduled classes, announced his desire to embrace Buddhism because of the lot of the “untouchables” in Hindu society - a lot which seemed to him a pointer to a lack in Hinduism of the sense of human brotherhood. He also declared that if Hinduism bore the caste system for several centuries it had failed “to yield anything substantive”. According to him, Buddhism stands in striking contrast to this religion.

What shall we say to these highly “allergic” criticisms?

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Apropos of Savitri and Prof. Manoj Das – by R.Y. Deshpande

Private dispute should always be avoided; but shrink not from public battle; yet even there appreciate the strength of thy adversary. ~ Sri Aurobindo

Prof Manoj Das writes: “I was for a while representing the Ashram in the courts where several cases were filed against the Trust because it brought out a revised version of the Master’s epic, Savitri. It was ‘revised’ in the sense that errors (typographical, punctuation, omission, words not properly deciphered in corrected proofs, etc) were removed through years of study and scrutiny.I was convinced that the Revised Edition of the epic is the most authentic one.” [Refer to Bireshwar Choudhury's reply to Manoj Das.]

In response to this we have the following on the website: “The Savitri revision controversy has rocked the Ashram for a decade or two. RY Deshpande was part of the team that finalised the Savitri revisions and he says that even Nirodbaran expressed his unhappiness over some of the revisions. The late Jugal Kishore Mukherjiwrote a fifty page letter to Amal on these revisions. … I will throw a challenge which Deshpande has long been insisting upon: Make all the Savitri manuscripts public. Put them up on the Net for all to see and judge for themselves the legitimacy of the revisions of the Archives editors.”

Prof Manoj Das says, “I was convinced that the Revised Edition of the epic is the most authentic one.” He also writes to the same effect to Dr Karan Singh.

Here my concern is to ask one or two immediate questions to Prof Manoj Das. If I get direct and non-evasive answers I would like to continue the dialogue further. The technical dialogue will be on this website. It is up to him to say yes or no.

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