INDEPENDENCE
DAY - AUGUST 15, 2005
Shyam Sunder
On January 5, 1920 Sri Aurobindo replied to John Baptista, a well-known barrister of Bombay and one of the leaders of Tilak’s nationalist party, who had invited him to accept the editorship of a proposed paper to be brought out from there. Sri Aurobindo was not willing to leave Pondicherry – that was the first reason stated by him for his non-acceptance of the ‘tempting offer’. It was a long letter and another reason that he gave is what has prompted the present piece of writing.
He stated, “I consider that...the will to self-determination, if the country keeps its present temper, as I have no doubt it will, is bound to prevail before long. What preoccupies me now is the question what it is going to do with its self-determination, how will it use its freedom, on what lines is it going to determine its future?”
Well, this is the question which should engage us as the 15th August of this year approaches marking the 58th Independence Anniversary for India. Now, of course, for our self-introspection the question will be, “What have we done with the freedom that came to us on 15th Aug 1947?”
Come 15th August, as usual the anniversary will be celebrated with fanfare and the Government’s list of ‘achievements’ and ‘promises’. The achievements and promises are likely to be on the same lines as in the past years. The comments and reactions of the people and the political parties are likely to be the same as usual. Nothing wrong in all that, but how many will think and reflect in an off the beat direction?
The direction in which serious thinking is needed is what Sri Aurobindo pointed out in 1948: “There are deeper issues for India herself, since by following certain tempting directions she may conceivably become a nation like many others evolving an opulent industry and commerce, a powerful organization of social and political life, an immense, military strength, practicing power-politics with a high degree of success, guarding and extending zealously her gains and her interests, dominating even a large part of the world, but in this apparently magnificent progression forgetting its Swadharma, losing its soul.
“Then ancient India and her spirit might disappear altogether and we would have only one more nation like the others and that would be a real gain neither to the world nor to us. There is a question whether she may prosper more harmlessly in the outward life yet lose altogether her richly massed and firmly held spiritual experience and knowledge.
“It would be a tragic irony of fate if India were to throw away her spiritual heritage at the very moment when in the rest of the world there is more and more a turning towards her for spiritual help and a saving Light.”
“This must not and will surely not happen;” Sri Aurobindo continues to say, “but it cannot be said that the danger is not there.”
We should open our eyes to see that today, even after more than fifty-five years, the danger of which. Sri Aurobindo has spoken above not only continues to be there, but has assumed larger proportions.
We must reflect over our actions in all these years in the light of two basic questions:
1. How far we have acted to
place India on the foundation of her swabhava and swadharma?
2. How far we have acted in continuation of the spiritual heritage of India? We, i.e., the Indian State and the people of India.
-Courtesy ‘Sri Aurobindo’s Action’