How prophetic were the words of Sri Aurobindo

(Sri Aurobindo on the so-called “non-violence” and the “Hindu–Muslim unity” in India)
(Quoted here below is the conversation that Sri Aurobindo had with one of his disciples on 23rd July 1924 which makes interesting reading even now after a lapse of 80 years)

(“Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo” by A.B. Purani, Second Series, Page 56 to 59)

Disciple: The Mahatma believes that non-violence purifies the man who practises it.
Sri Aurobindo: I believe Gandhi does not know what actually happens to the man’s nature when he takes to Satyagraha or non-violence. He thinks that men get purified by it. But when men suffer, or subject themselves to voluntarily suffering, what happens is that their vital being gets strengthened. These movements affect the vital being only and not any other part. Now, when you cannot oppose the force that oppresses, you say that you will suffer. That suffering is vital and it gives strength. When the man who has thus suffered gets power he becomes a worse oppressor. That is what I have written in the Essays on the Gita that when a nation gets freedom by the suffering of its leaders and other men, it oppresses other nations in it turn. It is almost always the case with those who suppress their vital being. It allows the pressure on itself, gets strong and then finds vent in some other direction.

The same thing happened to the Puritans in England. Cromwell and his men came to power and became the worst oppressors. In Christianity the principle for non-violence is there but it is meant to be practised for religious and spiritual temperaments. It may be partial but it can certainly develop certain types of spiritual temperaments. What one can do is to transform the spirit of violence. But in this practice of Satyagraha it is not transformed. When you insist on such a one-sided principle what happens is that cant, hypocrisy and dishonesty get in and there is no purification at all. Purification can come by the transformation of the impulse of violence, as I said.

In that respect the old system in India was much better. The man who had the fighting spirit became the Kshatriya and then the fighting spirit was raised above the ordinary vital influence. The attempt was to spiritualize it. It succeeded in doing what passive resistance cannot and will not achieve. The Kshatriya was the man who would not allow any oppression, who would fight it out and he was the man who would not oppress anybody. That was the ideal.
Disciple: Those who take to non-violence as a religion cannot intellectually conceive the possibility of transforming the spirit of violence.
Sri Aurobindo: But you can’t get rid of the spirit of fighting like that.
Disciple: There is also the question of Hindu-Muslim unity which the non-violence school is trying to solve on the basis of their theory.
Sri Aurobindo: You can live amicably with a religion whose principle is toleration. But how is it possible to live peacefully with a religion whose principle is “I will not tolerate you”? How are you going to have unity with these people? Certainly, Hindu-Muslim unity cannot be arrived at on the basis that the Muslims will go on converting Hindus while the Hindus shall not convert any Mohammedan.
Disciple: There was only recently the boycott of a drama in Andhra because some Hindu in the show was represented as marrying a Muslim Lady!
Sri Aurobindo: You can’t build unity on such a basis. Perhaps, the only way of making the Mohammedans harmless is to make them lose their fanatic faith in their religion.
Disciple: Can that be done by education?
Sri Aurobindo: Not by the kind of education they receive at Aligarh but by a more liberalizing education. The Turks, for instance, are not fanatical because they have more liberal ideas. Even when they fight it is not so much for Islam as for right and liberty.
It was the Mohammedans and the Christians who began the religious wars-- i.e. fighting for religion. First the Jews began persecuting and then the Christians when they began to disagree among themselves began to persecute also.
Disciples: The Mohammedans religion was born under such circumstances that the followers never forgot the origin.
Sri Aurobindo: That was the result of the passive-resistance which they practised. They went on suffering till they got strong enough and, when they got power, they began to persecute others with a vengeance.
The Roman Government persecuted the Christians and the Christians suffered. When the Christians came to power they started inquisitions and they always said that the institutions like the inquisition were very good for the souls of those people (Laughter).
Disciples: Did you read Malaviya’s speech about the Multan riots and also what C. Rajgopalachari ha said?
Sri Aurobindo: I am sorry they are making a fetish of this Hindu-Muslim unity. It is no use ignoring facts; some day the Hindus may have to fight the Muslim and they must prepare for it. Hindu–Muslim unity should not mean the subjection of the Hindus. Every time the mildness of the Hindu has given way. The best solution would be to allow the Hindus to organize themselves and the Hindu-Muslim unit would take care of itself, it would automatically solve the problem. Otherwise, we are lulled into a false sense of satisfaction that we have solved a difficult problem, when in fact we have only shelved it. Thursday, March 16, 2006 # posted by swamijyoti @ 5:41 PM