100 years ago: Sri Aurobindo arrives in Pondicherry

Here a eleven years ago article on the arrival of Sri Aurobindo in Pondicherry on April 4, 1910.

On April 4, Pondicherry celebrates the 100th anniversary of Sri Aurobindo’s arrival in the former French Establishment. On that day, politicians, eminent personalities and scholars will garland statues of the Master and pronounce great speeches; they will probably recall what Viceroy Lord Minto said about the first proponent of Purna Swaraj: “I can only repeat that he is the most dangerous man we have to reckon with”, and the curtain will fall on the grand function. I presume that it the fate of all functions.
But, let us go back 100 years ago.
In the afternoon of April 4, 1910, the Pondicherry pier witnessed a scene which will remain etched in history: a strict orthodox Tamil Brahmin, Srinivasachari and Suresh Chakravarti, a 18-year old Bengali revolutionary shared a small boat to reach out to Le Dupleix, a steamer which had just arrived from Calcutta carrying the ‘most dangerous’ man on board.

Perhaps due to old habits inherited during his British years, the revolutionary leave would not leave before having a cup of tea in the cabin. By the time they disembarked and boarded the rowboat waiting to take the famous passenger to French India, it was 4 pm.
Sri Aurobindo already ‘knew’ for certain that on a higher plane, India had already got her independence; it was only a question of time before it would ‘materialize’.
It is one of the reasons why as he set foot on the French territory, he could consecrate his energies to help humanity to undertake a new step in its spiritual evolution; a decision that many politicians in India never forgave.
Sri Aurobindo had come to Pondicherry to change the human nature. During the four following decades, his mantra will be “All life is Yoga”; everything, including matter has to be transformed and made divine.
Around 1914, he foresaw: “At present mankind is undergoing an evolutionary crisis in which is concealed a choice of its destiny.... Man has created a system of civilisation which has become too big for his limited mental capacity and understanding and his still more limited spiritual and moral capacity to utilise and manage, a too dangerous servant of his blundering ego and its appetites.”
He believed that “the burden which is being laid on mankind is too great for the present littleness of the human personality and its petty mind and small life-instincts” and therefore “it cannot operate the needed change” without a change in consciousness.
It is doubtful if the garlanders will have this in mind when they pay homage to the ‘great leader’, but no harm thinking positively.
For several months, Sri Aurobindo and his companions stayed on the second floor of a house belonging to one Shankar Chetty; Swami Vivekananda had stayed there when he had visited Pondicherry a few years earlier.
During the first three months, the young men remained inside the house day and night, it was too dangerous to roam the streets of the White Town; British CID agents were watching for a scoop.
Life continued thus during the following years, though rules gradually became less strict for the disciples who were even allowed to play football.
August 15, 1947, the day India obtained her independence coincided with Sri Aurobindo’s 75th birthday. It was a ‘justice of history’ for someone who had tirelessly worked for this momentous event.
The previous day, Sri Aurobindo had been requested by All India Radio to give a message to the nation. He spoke about his Five Dreams.
The first was that India be united again. Will the present division disappear one day and at which cost? Nobody can answer this question.
The second dream was to see the “resurgence and liberation of the peoples of Asia”. It is certainly happening fast.
Sri Aurobindo’s third dream was of a “world-union forming the outer basis of a fairer, brighter and nobler life for all mankind.” Many groupings such the European Union, the ASEAN or more recently the BRIC are slowly taking shape.
The fourth dream was a ‘spiritual gift of India to the world’. One only has to go to a bookshop in the West or look at the number of works on yoga, dharma, etc. to see that something of this has already been achieved.
The final dream was a new “step in evolution which would raise man to a higher and larger consciousness and begin the solution of the problems which have perplexed and vexed him since he first began to think and to dream of individual perfection and a perfect society”.
But life was not always easy. In the evening of August 15, 1947, goons belonging to a local political party turned violent and attacked some of the inmates of the Ashram. Mulshankar, a personal attendant of Sri Aurobindo who had gone home for a shower was attacked and killed. Nirodbaran, a close confident of the Master wrote later: “Sri Aurobindo listened quietly [to the news] and his face bore a grave and serious expression that we had not seen before.” India was free, but the Goonja Raj had begun.
It was probably the first act of terrorism of free India.
A few days later, Sri Aurobindo explained to the Editor of a National Daily: “There are three sections of the people here who are violently opposed to the existence of the Ashram, the advocates of Dravidisthan, extreme Indian Catholics and the Communists.”
For these small sections of the local community, Sri Aurobindo had probably become the ‘most dangerous man’, just because he believed in a future humanity rising above ideologies, castes, creeds or religions. He was indeed the Prophet of a new Humanism. A hundred years after his arrival in Pondicherry, one should not forget his message
Sri Aurobindo has described this quest as ‘the Adventure of Consciousness and Joy’. It seems to be the most urgent task at hand for humanity.
If enough individuals would aspire for this higher consciousness, undoubtedly the process could be hastened and the world around us would begin to change. It is perhaps the only relevant adventure in the world today.
But there is the other side to the coin: terrorism, corruption, discrimination, inequality, selfishness, etc. seem to prevail everywhere.
A hundred years ago, Sri Aurobindo saw that mankind was confronted with this ‘critical choice’, if the human race was to survive. Will humanity make this choice?

August 15, 1947: The saddest day in Pondicherry

Seven years ago, I wrote this paper on the 'saddest day' of Pondicherry.  
What happened was very unfortunate indeed!

The attendant of the rishi, Sri Aurobindo, who had given his life for the Freedom of India, was killed by supporters of a political party in front of the Ashram.
On Day 1 (August 15, 1947), goodaism was already part of the Indian political life.
Despite the French police's reputation, nothing happened to the criminals who were never arrested.

...The British Consul General reported that he had heard “rumours of a clash between the Socialists and some passers-by and that some of the Ashram buildings were stoned.”
He informed Delhi that one unconfirmed report mentioned that one member of the Ashram had died as a result of injury inflicted by a stone.
This incident is the most tragic of a day otherwise marked by joy and patriotic fervor. The death of Mulshankar, Sri Aurobindo’s attendant deeply blurred the Independence Day celebrations.
Mulshankar, a young Gujarati had come to the Ashram in the thirties and soon started serving Sri Aurobindo as an attendant and a masseur.
On the fateful day, Mulshankar was stabbed in the neck by local goondas; when he reached the Ashram main door, he was profusely bleeding, and ultimately, he could not be saved.
The press reported: “In the evening of 15 August 1947, the day of India’s independence, armed rioters attacked the Ashram, killing one member and injuring several others.”

Click here to read the paper...

Sri Aurobindo’s 150th birth anniversary: The sage who foresaw India’s spirituality, eternal vitality and creativity

My article Sri Aurobindo’s 150th birth anniversary: The sage who foresaw India’s spirituality, eternal vitality and creativity appeared in Firstpost

Here is the link... 

Sri Aurobindo was never interested in huge statues, grandiose projects or big institutions in his name; he just wanted a new better world to emerge from the present chaos

As we are celebrating the 150th Birth Anniversary of Sri Aurobindo this year, a High Level Committee was constituted by the government to commemorate the event.
Speaking during the inaugural meeting, the Prime Minister spoke of the two aspects of Sri Aurobindo: ‘Revolution’ and ‘Evolution’.
While the first is relatively well known, the second is practically unknown, even in India.
During the course of his speech, the Prime Minister fondly recalled his discussions as Gujarat Chief Minister with Dr Kireet Joshi, an eminent disciple of Sri Aurobindo, who served as Chairman of Auroville Foundation, who point out to him that it was India’s responsibility to offer spirituality to nations across the globe.
But who really was Sri Aurobindo?
He has been described as a rishi, a poet, a scholar, a literary critic, a philosopher, a yogi and much more.
As mentioned by the Prime Minister, historically, he was first a revolutionary leader, ‘The Prophet of Indian Nationalism’ in Dr Karan Singh’s words.
Born Aurobindo Ghose in Kolkatta on August 15, 1872, he left in his childhood to study in England; eventually he prepared for the Indian Civil Service examinations at King's College in Cambridge, but unconvinced that it was his future, he refused to attempt the last horse-riding examination, renouncing a brilliant carrier as a civil servant.
After returning to India; Sri Aurobindo started working for the Maharaja of Baroda; but soon jumped into nationalist politics. During these years, his articles in Bande Mataram, Karmayogin and other revolutionary papers fired up the youth of India.
In May 1908, he was arrested on a suspicion of preparing bombs and he faced charges of treason in the Alipore Conspiracy Case.
He was acquitted on May 6, 1909 after a brilliant defence by his counsel Deshbandu Chittaranjan Das who prophetically said: “That long after this controversy is hushed in silence, long after this turmoil, this agitation ceases, long after he is dead and gone, he will be looked upon as the poet of patriotism, as the prophet of nationalism and the lover of humanity. Long after he is dead and gone, his words will be echoed and re-echoed not only in India, but across distant seas and lands.”
The one year solitary confinement in Alipore Jail radically changed Sri Aurobindo’s views; he saw his task going far beyond the service and liberation of his country. He foresaw that India’s independence was decreed.
One of his spiritual experiences was the ‘visit’ of Swami Vivekananda: "It is a fact that I was hearing constantly the voice of Vivekananda speaking to me for a fortnight in the jail in my solitary meditation and felt his presence," he later wrote.
Let us not forget that at that time, Viceroy Lord Minto said about Sri Aurobindo, the first proponent of Purna Swaraj: “I can only repeat that he is the most dangerous man we have to reckon with.”

Spiritual Revolution
The second phase of the Rishi’s spiritual journey is hardly known.
To understand, we have to turn to the Mother, Sri Aurobindo’s collaborator, who joined him 1920 and later founded the Ashram in Pondicherry: “What Sri Aurobindo represents in the world's history is not a teaching, not even a revelation; it is a decisive action direct from the Supreme.”
On April 4, 1910 Sri Aurobindo arrived in the former French Establishment; that day, the Pondicherry pier witnessed a scene which will remain etched in history: a strict orthodox Tamil Brahmin, Srinivasachari and Suresh Chakravarti, a 18-year old Bengali revolutionary shared a small boat to reach Le Dupleix, a steamer which had just arrived from Calcutta carrying the ‘most dangerous man’ on board.
Sri Aurobindo had come to Pondicherry to change human nature.
During the four following decades, his mantra would be “All life is Yoga”; everything, including matter, must be transformed and made divine.
Around 1914, he foresaw: “At present mankind is undergoing an evolutionary crisis in which is concealed a choice of its destiny.... Man has created a system of civilisation which has become too big for his limited mental capacity and understanding and his still more limited spiritual and moral capacity to utilise and manage, a too dangerous servant of his blundering ego and its appetites.”
He believed that “the burden which is being laid on mankind is too great for the present littleness of the human personality and its petty mind and small life-instincts” and therefore “it cannot operate the needed change” without a change in consciousness.
August 15, 1947, the day India obtained her independence, coincided with Sri Aurobindo’s 75th birthday. It was a ‘justice of history’ for someone who had tirelessly worked for this momentous event.
The previous day, Sri Aurobindo had been requested by All India Radio to give a message to the nation. He spoke about his Five Dreams.
The first was that “India be united again”. Will the present division disappear one day? Nobody can answer this question.
The second dream was to see the “resurgence and liberation of the peoples of Asia”; it has already happened.
Sri Aurobindo’s third dream was of a “world-union forming the outer basis of a fairer, brighter and nobler life for all mankind.” Many groupings such the European Union, the ASEAN, the BRIC etc, are slowly taking shape, though divisions remain.
The fourth dream was a ‘spiritual gift of India to the world’. One only has to go to a bookshop in the West or look at the number of works on yoga, dharma, etc. to see that something of this has already been achieved.
The final dream, perhaps the most important, was a new “step in evolution which would raise man to a higher and larger consciousness and begin the solution of the problems which have perplexed and vexed him since he first began to think and to dream of individual perfection and a perfect society”.
But Sri Aurobindo knew that the journey would not be easy, ‘dark forces’ would again and again try to derail the progress of humanity towards her destiny. The Nazi regime in Germany was one of these obstacles; in 1940, he had observed: “If Britain were defeated, that result would be made permanent and in Asia also all the recent development such as the rise of new or renovated Asiatic peoples would be miserably undone, and India’s hope of liberty would become a dead dream of the past or a struggling dream of a far-off future… Mankind itself as a whole would be flung back into a relapse towards barbarism, a social condition and an ethics which would admit only the brute force of the master and the docile submission of the slave.”
Very few, even in his Ashram, understood his words that the victory of the British Empire during WWII was necessary for the world to evolve towards a more human, if not enlightened condition; the freedom of India would emerge from the Allies’ victory, he foresaw (it did, two years after the end of the War). At that time (1940), Sri Aurobindo saw “a clash between two world-forces which are contending for the control of the whole future of humanity.”
Is the situation different today? The present confrontation, particularly with China, is between two opposite worlds. India, despite having an incredible number of weaknesses and deficiencies and the apparent chaos everywhere, represents an aspiration for freedom, peace and diversity on the planet. China is the opposite.
Sri Aurobindo has shown the path: “Spirituality is indeed the master-key of the Indian mind.” One hundred years ago, he wrote: “When we look at the past of India, what strikes us next is her stupendous vitality, her inexhaustible power of life and joy of life, her almost unimaginably prolific creativeness. For three thousand years at least, – it is indeed much longer, – she has been creating abundantly and incessantly, lavishly, with an inexhaustible many sidedness, republics and kingdoms and empires, philosophies and cosmogonies and sciences and creeds and arts and poems and all kinds of monuments, palaces and temples and public works, communities and societies and religious orders, laws and codes and rituals, physical sciences, psychic sciences, systems of Yoga, systems of politics and administration, arts spiritual, arts worldly, trades, industries, fine crafts, the list is endless and in each item there is almost a plethora of activity.”
Today, more and more the Government would like to replace this creativity, by ‘development’; it will hopefully be only a passing phase because “She [India] creates and creates and is not satisfied and is not tired,” noted the sage.
Being devoted to this eternal vitality and creativity would be the best homage to Sri Aurobindo for his 150th Birth Anniversary; he was never interested in huge statues, grandiose projects or big institutions in his name; he just wanted a new better world to emerge from the present chaos.
But it depends on each of us.
 

1971 war: When world woke up to Pakistani terror and India’s endeavour to save humanity in Bangladesh

My article  1971 war: When world woke up to Pakistani terror and India’s endeavour to save humanity in Bangladesh appeared in Firstpost

Here is the link...

The Bangladesh liberation war united the multitudinous progressive forces in all continents in an aspiration for a better world
1971 war: When world woke up to Pakistani terror and India’s endeavour to save humanity in Bangladesh

“Bangladesh Bangladesh, When the Sun Sinks in the West…” my generation still remembers the crystal-clear voice of Joan Baez, the youth icon of the ‘flower generation’, supporting an action to save the millions of Bengalis fleeing their homeland after Pakistan’s generals unleashed terror on the populace of the land which would soon become Bangladesh.

The birth of this new country was to become an event observed by the entire planet; the months which preceded the ‘birth’ are engraved into world history.

50 Years Later
Joan Baez had written ‘The Story of Bangladesh’ in March 1971, soon after the Pakistani Army crackdown on sleeping unarmed Bengali students at Dhaka University on 25 March 1971, an event which triggered the Bangladesh Liberation War eight months later.
This month, the planet celebrates the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Bangladesh by the Indian Army. For many, the events of December 1971 symbolise an awakening of the world consciousness to the injustice and cruelty of Pakistan’s state politics towards the people of East Pakistan.
It also remains an episode that united the multitudinous progressive forces in all continents in an aspiration for a better world. Many nations played an extremely negative role, first and foremost being the United States of America and China.

Many sides to birth of Bangladesh
In this context, it is unfortunate that in 1971, the United States, for its own petty political interests (primarily to become friends with Mao’s China) gave its support to the Pakistani dictator and this despite the ‘Blood Telegrams’ sent by Archer Blood, the US Consul General in Dacca, informing Washington of the atrocious massacres being committed by the Pakistani Army.
There are a number of other aspects to the Bangladesh liberation, some of which have been neglected by historians. Obviously, for India and prime minister Indira Gandhi, it was a war that became a resounding victory for the Indian Army and its chief, Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw.
In many ways, it washed away the scars of the crushing defeat of 1962 against the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China. For the Indian defence forces, it was proof that with good, sound, down-to-earth and at the same time decisive political and military leadership and coordinated cooperation between the three Services (Army, Air Force and Navy), “India can do it”. The ‘job’ was done in 13 days (3-16 December 1971). It was an immense psychological boost for India.

The end of Panchsheel policy
One issue which is not often highlighted is that the liberation of Bangladesh saw the end of the sacrosanct Panchsheel policy. By intervening inside Pakistan’s territory, India showed that the right to self-determination can prevail over other principles.
The mandarins of South Block have always preferred ‘not to rock the boat’ and the Five Principles (primarily ‘non-interference’ in other’s affairs) have been the best way to avoid looking at crimes committed in the neighbourhood (remember the invasion of Tibet in 1950?).
This time the diplomats did only intervene after the war was over (to botch up the military successes and give Zulfikar Ali Bhutto whatever he wanted).

The Tibetan participation
The Indian intervention in East Pakistan explained the nervousness of communist China which had just been admitted to the UN: Would India one day ‘liberate’ Tibet, like it was in the process of doing for Bangladesh? This was certainly an issue for the leadership in Beijing that violently opposed India’s military actions. It was compounded by the participation of the Tibetan commandos in military operations.
The participation of the Special Frontier Force (SFF), a unit composed of Tibetans, which had been created in November 1962 and was under the responsibility of Brig (later Maj Gen) Sujan Singh Uban, an officer specialised in guerilla warfare, is not well known. This force played a crucial role in cutting off the retreat of the Pakistani troops toward Burma (today Myanmar) and neutralising the Mizo insurgents supporting Pakistan.
The Tibetan operations in the Chittagong Hills are important for different reasons: It had the spiritual backing of the Dalai Lama, the temporal and spiritual leader of Tibet, and also because China, an ally of Pakistan, realised for the first time that the SFF was a force to reckon with and that one day, the SFF might be used by India for operations inside Tibet.
The records of the actions of the Mukti Bahini, the Bangladesh Liberation Force, also trained by Gen Uban, are still difficult to find (even after 50 years), but their actions are worth remembering.

Intellectual and spiritual aspects
But there is more to the liberation of Bangladesh. Many intellectuals, thinkers and well-known personalities joined in their condemnation of the crimes by the Pakistani generals, who were supported by the US and Chinese leadership. The collusion of these two governments against basic human values is well documented.
The example of André Malraux, the Culture Minister of General Charles de Gaulle, who was extremely active in the intellectual and political sphere in support of the new state of Bangladesh, is worth mentioning. At an advanced age, he was keen to join the Mukti Bahini to help Mujibur Rehman, the Bengali leader who had won the Pakistani elections held earlier in the year, to ‘liberate’ his nation from the tyrannical Pakistani rule.
It is interesting to note that in 1971, the Indian Army was commanded by a General of the Parsi faith (Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw), the Army Commander in Eastern Command (Gen JS Aurora) was a Sikh, while the Chief of Staff (Gen JFR Jacob) was of the Jewish faith; and of course, several senior officers were Hindus. Apart from the fact that this blend is a unique trait of the Indian Army, all these representatives of different faiths defended their Muslim brothers of Bangladesh. The liberation of Bangladesh also meant the survival of a pluralistic world, where freedom of faith, speech and democracy can thrive.

Sri Aurobindo’s vision
In this context, it is worth mentioning the spiritual angle, particularly the deep spiritual involvement of the Mother of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in the Liberation War.
During his entire life (including after his so-called ‘retirement’ in Pondicherry), the Rishi of Pondicherry felt extremely concerned about the happenings in Bengal (in both its western and eastern parts) and until his passing away, he would regularly be briefed about the ‘politics’ of Bengal.
Already at the start of World War II, the sage had beautifully commented upon the struggle between two worlds, one based on violence and authoritarianism (or fascism) and the other on a more human approach. He argued that it was of utmost importance to support the latter.
In 1940, Sri Aurobindo wrote: “The struggle that is going on is not fundamentally a conflict between two imperialisms — German and English… It is in fact a clash between two world forces that are contending for the control of the whole future of humanity. One force seeks to destroy the past civilisation and substitute a new one; but this new civilisation is in substance a reversion to the old principles of dominant force and a rigid external order and denies the established values, social, political, ethical, spiritual, altogether. Among these values are those which were hitherto held to be the most precious, the liberty of the individual, the right to national liberty, freedom of thought; even religious liberty is to be crushed and replaced by the subjection of religion to state control.”
In many ways, the fact that the cause célèbre for the liberation of Bangladesh attracted so many diverse voices the world over, is a reminder that if India and the world had accepted the diktats from Pakistan (and their friends in Washington and Beijing), a more barbaric world would have flourished, at least in this part of the world. The Indian armed forces should be proud to have been the main might behind this victorious multifaceted endeavour.

Sri Aurobindo: the Man who saw the Future

Sri Aurobindo

On the occasion of Sri Aurobindo's Birthday (and India's Independence Day), I republish an old article on the great Rishi, who brought me to India.

"Rabindranath, O Aurobindo, bows to thee! O friend, my country's friend, O Voice incarnate, free, Of India's soul".

The Man who saw the Future  

It was perhaps a coincidence or my good ‘karma’, but traveling from France to India in 1972, I kept a pocketbook in my backpack: the French translation of The Life Divine, Sri Aurobindo’s philosophical magnum opus. I did not know it, but it was the Great Rishi’s Centenary Year. I have also to admit that I was not able to not decipher much about the Master’s philosophical vision. It was, however, to greatly influence my life and answer a fundamental question: should the ‘outside world’ be transformed into something ‘beautiful’ in the image of the Divine or should the material world be abandoned and all life devoted to reaching ‘higher’ realms?
I had serious reservations about the latter. Traveling in India in the early 1970s was a shock; the dirt, the chaos in the big cities, the lack of ‘modern’ facilities, the blaring loudspeakers, the crowds, the crowds everywhere, everything was a constant reminder that things were not so bad in Europe where trains ran on time, towns were clean, information was easily available to the public, hygiene a way of life.
Somehow Sri Aurobindo’s words struck home. He said: “The affirmation of a divine life upon earth and an immortal sense in mortal existence can have no base unless we recognise not only the eternal Spirit as the inhabitant of this bodily mansion, the wearer of this mutable robe, but accept Matter of which it is made, as a fit and noble material out of which He weaves constantly His garbs, builds recurrently the unending series of His mansions.”
Matter had to be transformed into the image of the Spirit; matter need not (and should not) be abandoned. It is quite a revolutionary statement.
It touched me deeply and I decided to settle in India.
It makes Sri Aurobindo relevant in our ‘modern’ century.
While the ‘Indian renaissance’ has recently been equated to economic growth, a sort of Chinese-model development with a constant GDP growth (a ‘to become rich is glorious’ à la Deng Xiaoping). Though he excluded nothing (‘synthesis’ being the keyword of Sri Aurobindo’s vision), it is certainly not the type of renaissance Sri Aurobindo envisaged for India.
His synthesis never meant to ape the Western model which, according to him, had already failed. He wanted India to rediscover her past, not for the sake of the past, but because “Spirituality is the master-key of the Indian mind”. The ancient seekers had found that “the physical does not get its full sense until it stands in right relation to the supra-physical; [Ancient India] saw that the complexity of the universe could not be explained in the present terms of man or seen by his superficial sight, that there were other powers behind, other powers within man himself of which he is normally unaware.”
This knowledge is the key to the true transformation of the bodily mansion of Mother India. Only then will India be able to play her rightful role in the world and truly shine.
In the meantime, planetary civilisation is going through one of the most difficult (and challenging) times of its recorded history. Just read a newspaper, whether published in Delhi, the Himalayas, China or Timbuktu, everywhere headlines are similar: pollution, corruption, poverty, global warming, environment catastrophes, nuclear proliferation, new viruses or the NSA (and Beijing) peeping into your private life…
In 1940, Sri Aurobindo foresaw: “At present mankind is undergoing an evolutionary crisis in which is concealed a choice of its destiny... Man has created a system of civilisation which has become too big for his limited mental capacity and understanding and his still more limited spiritual and moral capacity to utilise and manage, a too dangerous servant of his blundering ego and its appetites…”
How can we deal with this crisis? Sri Aurobindo’s answer is by a change in consciousness; not only an individual one, but a revolutionary transformation of the entire race. Sri Aurobindo noted: “The end of a stage of evolution is usually marked by a powerful recrudescence of all that has to go out of the evolution.... The law is the same for the mass as for the individual.”
The planet is today going through this difficult stage. India could help, but will she be able to grasp once more the Spirit which sustained her past achievements and formulate a ‘greater synthesis’?
In 1920, Sri Aurobindo wrote to his brother Barindranath: “The chief cause of the weakness of India is not subjection nor poverty, nor the lack of spirituality or Dharma, but the decline of thought-power, the growth of ignorance in the motherland of Knowledge… The modern world is the age of the victory of Knowledge.” Since then, tremendous changes have occurred; the explosion of the Indian IT phenomenon is one of the many signs which could be cited. But is it enough?
To do justice to Sri Aurobindo one should read some of the 35 thick volumes of his philosophical, socio-political and evolutionary thought, as well as Savitri, an epic in 28,000 verses. His socio-political philosophy and how he translated it into action during his life as a revolutionary leader in Bengal and later a Rishi in Pondicherry, are thought-provoking.
Sri Aurobindo, in a chapter of his Foundations of Indian Culture envisioned a three-point program for the ‘renaissance in India’: “The recovery of the old spiritual knowledge and experience in all its splendour, depth and fullness is its first, most essential work. ...The flowing of this spirituality into new forms of philosophy, literature, art, science and critical knowledge is the second.
An original dealing with modern problems in the light of Indian spirit and the endeavour to formulate a greater synthesis of a spiritualised society is the third and most difficult.
These tasks written a century ago remain unfulfilled.
On August 15, 1947 India obtained independence. It coincided with the 75th birthday of the one who had been the first Indian to ask for Purna Swaraj in the early years of the 20th century. For this occasion, Sri Aurobindo wrote about five dreams he had for India.
The first one was to see India united again: “India today is free but she has not achieved unity.” During the last years of his life he often spoke of the aberration of the Partition. The second dream was to see the “resurgence and liberation of the peoples of Asia”. His third dream was a “world-union forming the outer basis of a fairer, brighter and nobler life for all mankind.” The fourth dream was a “spiritual gift of India to the world”. The final dream was a new “step in evolution which would raise man to a higher and larger consciousness and begin the solution of the problems which have perplexed and vexed him since he first began to think and to dream of individual perfection and a perfect society.”
The person that Dr Karan Singh has called the Prophet of Indian Nationalism could already see beyond India’s freedom. Bharat had a larger role to play for the future of humanity.
Though for the sake of his personal sadhana, he lived a secluded life in his room in Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo never retired into some sort of Nirvana or beatific splendour. He remained well acquainted with the politics of the sub-continent and the world situation. In 1940, when many Indian leaders were vacillating and would have supported a German victory in World War II, he sent a personal contribution to the British war effort and expressed ‘unswerving sympathy’ to the Allies cause. He wrote: “We feel that not only is this a battle waged in just self-defence and in defence of the nations threatened with the world-domination of Germany and the Nazi system of life, but that it is a defence of civilisation and its highest attained social, cultural and spiritual values and of the whole future of humanity.”
Sri Aurobindo opposed the hegemony of any one single ideology. For the planet to survive, every nation, every culture or individual has to find its rightful place according to its own genius.
It is why he took a strong stand when North Korea attacked the South in early 1950; he then foresaw the invasion of Tibet: “The whole affair is as plain as a pike-staff. It is the first move in the Communist plan of campaign to dominate and take possession first of these northern parts and then of South East Asia as a preliminary to their manoeuvres with regard to the rest of the continent - in passing, Tibet as a gate opening to India.”
We see the consequences in Ladakh or Arunachal today.
After visiting Pondicherry in 1928, Tagore said: “Rabindranath, O Aurobindo, bows to thee! O friend, my country's friend, O Voice incarnate, free, Of India's soul.”  The poet added “You have the Word and we are waiting to accept it from you. India will speak through your voice to the world. Hearken to me!”
Sri Aurobindo’s Vision is still relatively unknown in India, but his ‘Adventure of Consciousness and Joy’ is the most urgent task at hand for humanity today.

When the most dangerous man came to Pondicherry

Pondicherry pier

On the occasion of Sri Aurobindo's Birthday and India's Independence Day, I repost an old article of 2010.

“I can only repeat that he is the most dangerous man we have to reckon with”, thus Viceroy Lord Minto spoke of Aurobindo Ghose, the proponent of Purna Swaraj against the mighty British Empire in the early 20th century.
In the afternoon of April 4, 1910, the Pondicherry pier witnessed a scene which will remain etched in history: a strict orthodox Tamil Brahmin, Srinivasachari and Suresh Chakravarti, a 18-year old Bengali revolutionary shared a small boat to reach out to Le Dupleix, a steamer which had just arrived from Calcutta carrying the ‘most dangerous’ man on board.
In his short Bengali book, Smritikatha, Chakravarti gives a humoristic description of the ‘dangerous’ minutes he spent on the rowboat before they could come along side the Dupleix.

Suresh Chakravarti

Perhaps due to old reminiscences of his years in Great Britain, the Bengali leader would not leave before offering the duo a cup of tea in his cabin. By the time they disembarked and boarded the rowboat waiting to take the famous passenger to French India, it was 4 pm.
Chakravarti had arrived in Pondicherry a few days earlier, scouting for an accommodation for his leader; for the couple of days, Srinivasachari and his friends did not act on his request, thinking that he was a spy. It is only when the arrival of the political leader was confirmed that it was decided to have a reception committee at the pier. The young Bengali managed to dissuade Srinivasachari and others (including Subramanya Bharathi) to have any official function. “Sri Aurobindo's coming to Pondicherry was a closely guarded secret and he would like to live in strict solitude in order to avoid harassment by the agents of the British Government”, says one of Sri Aurobindo’s biographers.
For several months, Sri Aurobindo and his companions stayed on the second floor of a house belonging to one Shankar Chetty; Swami Vivekananda had stayed there when he had visited Pondicherry a few years earlier. In his memoirs, Chakravarti details the material arrangements: as there was no bathroom in Sri Aurobindo’s room, he had to come down to the ground floor at dusk for his bath. The daily menu never changed, same boiled rice, same brinjal, same dal cooked on two earth stoves. Nobody complained ever, the Yogi and his apprentice-yogis.

Shankar Chetty House

During the first three months, the young men remained inside the house day and night, it was too dangerous to roam the streets of the White Town; some British agents were certainly looking for a scoop for their promotion.
Life continued thus during the following years, though rules gradually became less strict for the disciples who were even allowed to play football. As for Sri Aurobindo, he was intensely immersed in his sadhana.
One young Tamil boy called Amrita, who later became a senior disciple, recalled that in 1913, "Every evening, a little after dark, [Subramanya] Bharathi would go to Sri Aurobindo's house. He chose that time not with the purpose of avoiding people who would want to make a note of his visit. It was because Sri Aurobindo used to come out of his room and receive his friends only after seven in the evening. An exception, however, was made for close friends like Bharati and Srinivasachari, who, at a very urgent need, could see him at any time of the day. Bharati would visit without fail.”
The 100 years of the Master’s arrival in Pondicherry are today celebrated: politicians will probably garland statues of Sri Aurobindo, ‘scholars’ will recount his achievements and the contribution of the State of Pondicherry to his inner realizations; many will quote Rabindranath (who visited him in 1928): “Rabindranath, O Aurobindo, bows to thee! O friend, my country's friend, O Voice incarnate, free, Of India's soul....The fiery messenger that with the lamp of God Hath come...Rabindranath, O Aurobindo, bows to thee,” but there is another side to the coin.
During the 40 years of his stay in Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo faced constant enmity, to put it mildly, not only from sections of the local population, but also from the representatives of the British Crown, the French Administration as well as local politicians.
Recently I had the good luck to come across a secret file kept in the French National Archives in Nantes (France). This Police Report addressed to the Governor of French India was written in 1928. The local police dispatched the weirdest information to their bosses in Paris. A chapter about the Ashram reads: “It seems that the monastery has no rules, no status, one is at a loss to give a name to this association of foreigners [probably meaning Bengalis] in which all castes and religions meets and fusions [is it a compliment?]. Arawbinda [sic] Ghose would be the incarnation of Siva, the Destroyer God of the Tantric Trinity [sic], Mrs Paul Richard (alias Madame Mira Richard, alias Miradevy, alias Kalidevy, alias “Mother”) would represent Kali, the Goddess of War and Mr Paul Richard himself would be a reincarnation of Jesus Christ [Richard had left Pondicherry 14 years earlier after a short stay]. Two members (we couldn’t get their name) would respectively be St Abraham and Mohamed.”
The creativity of the French Police is difficult to match; they speak of ‘inner disciples’ (the Bengalis) and the ‘outer disciples’, something unknown in Sri Aurobindo’s yoga.
The report goes on for more than 20 pages: “The Great Sage appears to his ‘churchy’ followers twice a year … in a chariot decorated with flowers [Sri Aurobindo never came out of his room]. The adepts had to make offering of no less than 100 rupees.” The Police also speak “of a midnight darshan for inner disciples presided by Arawbinda Ghose himself.” Pure invention.
The British reports were not better. Sri Aurobindo’s sadhana however, continued apparently unhindered; with a few rare exceptions (such as French Governor François Baron), the local hostility was always present.
But there is worse. A shocking event took place in the evening of August 15, 1947. India (and Pondicherry) celebrated India’s Independence; Sri Aurobindo, whose birthday coincided with this momentous event, had just issued a message with his Five Dreams for the future of India and the entire human race, when goons belonging to a local political party turned violent and attacked some of the inmates of the Ashram. Mulshankar, a personal attendant of Sri Aurobindo who had left his duty for a few minutes and gone home for a shower was attacked and killed. Nirodbaran, a close confident of the Master wrote later: “Sri Aurobindo listened quietly [to the news] and his face bore a grave and serious expression that we had not seen before.”
India was free, but the Goonja Raj had begun.
Three years later, to a follower asking his opinion for a new status for French India, Sri Aurobindo wrote: “But if nothing is changed in local conditions and freedom is left for a certain type of politicians and party leaders to make use of their opportunities to pervert everything to their own profit, how are they to be prevented from prolonging the old state of things.”
Undoubtedly the greatest revolutionary of 20th century did not want to ‘prolong the old state of things”, he wanted changes to occur in every field of life, whether political, social, economic or spiritual.
Would politicians and philosophers hearken his words, he would indeed become the most dangerous man, because he dreamt of earth-shaking changes for humanity, and entrenched powers do not like changes.
But one day, his Dreams are bound to give a new shape to India and the World.

'The past has a knack of exploding in our faces'

My interview with Michel Danino The past has a knack of exploding in our faces appeared in Rediff.com

Here is the link...

'People beat their chests when the Babri Masjid was brought down, not realising that it was just one event in a chain going back centuries; to look at the last link or two in isolation is absurd.'

Michel Danino is a French-born naturalised Indian scholar, who in 1977 came to India and settled here 'for good'.
After living in Auroville for a few years, he engaged himself in the preservation of tropical rainforests in the Nilgiri Hills. There he worked extensively on the edition, translation and publication of Sri Aurobindo's and the Mother's works, especially Mother's Agenda.
He also studied Indian archaeology and ancient history so as to understand the roots of Indian civilisation.
In 1996, he wrote his first book The Invasion that Never Was, with an enlarged edition in 2000. His masterpiece, The Lost River: On The Trail of the Saraswati was published in 2010.
Danino -- visiting professor at IIT Gandhinagar (Gujarat), where he helped set up an Archaeological Sciences Centre. -- was awarded the Padma Shri in 2017 for his contribution towards literature and education.
Claude Arpi met him in Pondicherry where he had come to release the fully revised version of his book Sri Aurobindo and India's Rebirth based on Sri Aurobindo's writings.

Your book Sri Aurobindo and India's Rebirth has just been published. What does 'India's rebirth' mean? Why this title, was India really dead?

In a sense, to the freedom-fighters of the early twentieth century, India was half-dead. The need for 'awakening' pervades the entire literature of those times.

Awakening from the long slumber induced by the colonial rule, and in a deeper sense (the one taken by Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo, among others), the slumber of self-oblivion.

Rebirth was, to them, not merely 'nation-making', but a process of self-rediscovery and reawakening of India's strengths.

Who was Sri Aurobindo?

Chronologically (more or less!): A poet, an avid student of Indian civilisation, a freedom-fighter, a visionary of India's mission for herself and for the world, a philosopher, an author, an explorer of the worlds of consciousness, a yogi, an architect of the future.

Why do so very few understand or even acknowledge Sri Aurobindo in India today?

Sri Aurobindo is uncompromising: As a writer, he never endeavours to be 'readable'; you must rise to his level or close the book.

As a philosopher and teacher, he departs from orthodoxies, Western or Indian; he rejects humanism and all hopes for a more 'moral' human being as shallow and ineffectual, and insists on a fundamental change in human nature as the only hope for the species' survival.

As a visionary, he points to India's spiritual foundations as the main source of her national and civilisational strengths which, today, is regarded as politically incorrect.

Most of our eminent Indian intellectuals make no effort to understand his vision, much less his work; for them he was, at best, a 'spiritual figure' (if not a religious one!), and therefore good only for bhaktas.

Take Ramachandra Guha's Makers of Modern India as a symptomatic case: Sri Aurobindo does not figure among them -- neither does Swami Vivekananda, incidentally; modern India apparently owes nothing to them.

No central or state university is named after them. Not that such a lack of recognition matters much in the end: if their work had any intrinsic value, it will outlast our ephemeral second-hand intellectual constructions.

A few words about your other books.

They all had Sri Aurobindo as a starting point, in a way, since his study of the Vedas happened to reject the theory of an Aryan invasion of India. That was not central to his interpretation of the Vedic hymns (which, here too, departed from recent interpretations whether Indian or European), but he was clearly annoyed by this racial and racist theory, which he saw as wholly arbitrary and unsupported by the hymns.

I set off on an exploration to find out the current state of scholarship on the Aryan issue, eventually writing The Invasion That Never Was, which proved quite popular but later left me dissatisfied; in 2006 I wrote an updated and much longer version in French, followed by a multidisciplinary study of the Saraswati river (The Lost River: On The Trail of the Saraswati, 2010).

For the last few years, I have been working on a comprehensive study of the Aryan issue, using it as a pretext to explore the origins of Indian civilisation. I also contributed an essay on Indian culture and the challenges it has been facing (Indian Culture and India's Future, 2011).

Give us your view about the Aryan Invasion. Did the river Saraswati exist or is it a political myth?

My view of the Aryan invasion remains the same: There is no evidence for it, or for a peaceful migration either, and a good deal of counter-evidence.

However, just stating this -- which many scholars, Indian and non-Indian alike, have declared for over a century -- does not resolve the issue, since the Iranian, Central Asian and European sides of the supposed Indo-European migration have to be assessed, and the linguistic problem still calls for a solution.

It's essentially a multidisciplinary issue, which also touches on mythology, archaeoastronomy, genetics and a few more fields, and until all its aspects have been accounted for, no one can claim to have finally resolved it. We are still far from such a solution.

As regards the Saraswati, there can be no doubt that it was a real river; it is praised in the whole early Vedic literature, with details of its geography and progressive disappearance.

In recent times, its identification was determined not by satellite imagery, but way back in the 19th century by a French geographer, Louis Vivien de Saint-Martin, who in 1855 combined those literary references with recent explorations of the Yamuna-Sutlej divide.

The rest of the story can be found in my book. Politics of all hues has indeed barged into such issues, but that is hardly surprising, since archaeology and history have rarely been insulated from politics, being central to the construction of identities.

Tell us what you teach at IIT Gandhinagar. You are also involved with the Archaeological Sciences Centre.

I teach courses on classical Indian civilisation -- its foundations, knowledge systems -- and an introductory course on the history of science and technology in India.

As regards the Archaeological Sciences Centre, which is now over five years old, it conducts and encourages research on the scientific aspects of archaeology, using scientific methods (ranging from various microscopy and characterization techniques to ground-penetrating radar or remote sensing) to investigate excavated sites or materials.

India has lagged behind in this respect, resulting in a poor exploitation of excavated materials; we have a long way to go, but this centre is trying to make a beginning.

Do you find an interest for history among the younger generation today?

I think the number of young Indians interested in history is probably neither more nor less than with previous generations.

On the one hand, the rat race to jobs takes a heavy toll on disciplines that do not offer a fat pay cheque and therefore rarely attract the best talents; on the other, material (including videos) on history is more readily available, although much of it remains of dubious quality.

I have often had students in engineering or scientific disciplines coming to me with a very keen interest in archaeology or history, but having had to succumb to parental pressure.

The biggest challenge, in my opinion, is to drastically improve the pedagogy of history teaching so as to make it creative and captivating to schoolchildren to begin with; the rest would follow more or less automatically.

Is it important to know about the distant past, say, the Aryan question? Is it serious or just a hobby for you? It seems a waste of time when the world is changing so fast, isn't it?

From a certain angle, everything is a waste of time -- including being a successful engineer who happily contributes to the destruction of the planet's environment!

I am not obsessed with the Aryan question; I use it as a tool to explore the origins or Indian civilisation. I am equally interested in other periods or manifestations of Indian history, right up to the struggle for freedom.

Whether we like it or not, the past is never dead and has a knack of catching up with the present and exploding in our faces.

To take a dramatic example (many are less spectacular but equally important), people beat their chests when the Babri Masjid was brought down, not realising that it was just one event in a chain going back centuries; to look at the last link or two in isolation is absurd.

In what way can history help India to face its myriads 'concrete' problems?

In many ways: By helping us understand what Indianness means, and therefore our identity or identities and their complexities; by showing the way to healing some of the festering wounds of the past; by highlighting India's civilisational achievements and knowledge systems in various fields, including her ability to hold together people of such diversity; by clearing up much unnecessary confusion, for instance, in the silly debates on 'secularism'; and sometimes by suggesting workable improvements or solutions to burning problems of the day, whether in polity, agriculture, medicine, water management, environmental protection...

Why did you become a naturalised Indian?

I had in any case decided long ago to spend my life in India, so that was the natural thing to do. I was tired of being seen as a 'foreigner', also of the severe administrative limitations imposed on that status.

Any regret to have come to India and become an Indian?

I never regretted these decisions.

What does it mean for you -- a French-born -- to get the Padma Shri?

A great honour, undoubtedly, though I happen to know many people who deserve it far more. In any case, I never think in terms of honour and rewards; the old philosophy that the work is its own reward has much merit in my eyes.

Any message for the young of India?

Ask, question, explore, challenge, but above all, understand.

Nothing is more pitiful than the spectacle of some of our young 'activists', pale copies of their European counterparts, who spit on what they have never tried to understand in the first place and whose skulls are just echo-chambers.

In the end, what matters is not to accept or reject anything, but to deepen our understanding and grow with it.

We do not belong to the past dawns, but to the noons of the future ...a very rich, a very vast synthesis; a fresh and widely embracing harmonisation of our gains is both an intellectual and a spiritual necessity of the future. - Sri Aurobindo.

'May Auroville serve as a beacon to the world'

My article 'May Auroville serve as a beacon to the world' apperead in Rediff.com


Here is the link...

'May it be the guardian which calls for breaking down narrow walls of the mind.'
'May it continue to invite everyone to celebrate the possibilities of humanity's one-ness.'
Claude Arpi salutes 50 years of Auroville, a Grand Experiment in Living.


Old timers will remember the famous journalist and editor Russi Karanjia who founded Blitz, a national weekly.
Started as early as 1941, India's first tabloid focused on investigative journalism and 'hot' news; sometime the frontier between 'investigative journalism' and fake news was tenuous.
Sometime at the end of the 1970s, Blitz published a double-page article entitled 'Auroville, the Snake Pit. It was full of 'news' about the bunch of forengi hippies living near Pondicherry (now Puducherry).
The reporter (I don't remember his name) spoke of drug addicts and peddlers who were trying to create a new sect, in the form of a city with Vatican-like status. It was the worst place on earth.
All of it was obviously absolute fake news.
Those of us who lived in rather rustic conditions on the arid plateau were understandably, deeply, upset, but we soon decided to continue doing our work and did not even contact the editor to make a fuss about the article.

The prime minister in Auroville
On Sunday, February 25, the prime minister of India arrived on the now afforested plateau to celebrate the golden jubilee of the project, the Blitz title flashed in my mind. The times had certainly changed.
Speaking in the Bharat Nivas auditorium, Narendra Modi declared: "Sri Aurobindo's vision of India's spiritual leadership continues to inspire us even today."
"Indeed, Auroville is a manifestation of that vision. Over the last five decades, it has emerged as a hub of social, cultural, educational, economic and spiritual innovation."
The prime minister described Sri Aurobindo, the Rishi of modern times, as "A man of action, a philosopher, a poet, there were so many facets to his character. And each of them was dedicated to the good of the nation and humanity."
He spoke of the five high principles for Auroville, beginning: "Auroville belongs to all humanity, a reflection of India's ancient credo of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam -- the world is one family."
"The very fact that Auroville has brought together such a huge diversity of people and ideas makes dialogue and debate natural," Mr Modi continued. "Auroville showcases the ancient Indian tradition to the world by bringing together global diversity."
He spoke of a "Yagna" for unity performed 50 years ago: "Men and Women brought soil from all parts of the world. In the mixing of the soil began the journey of one-ness."

The Ancient Yagna
On February 28, 1968, some 5,000 people gathered on a barren plateau of red laterite, north of the former French establishment in Pondicherry.

That day marked the birth of a 'Dream' which had rarely been attempted; to bring people from different countries, races, religions, backgrounds in one single place to build a city together, 'a Tower of Babel in reverse', in the Founder's words.
Perhaps the most astonishing part is that the 'dream' still exists; and nobody today thinks to call it a 'snake pit'.
On the contrary, the prime minister prayed, "May Auroville serve as a beacon to the world. May it be the guardian which calls for breaking down narrow walls of the mind. May it continue to invite everyone to celebrate the possibilities of humanity's one-ness."
What a journey it has been. Not always an easy one for the early settlers.

The First Years
In 1968, as the world was churning (it was three months before the May 1968 students revolution in Europe), the utopia of a universal city began to take shape.
Instead of destroying 'an old world', the idea was to construct a 'new' one; it was undoubtedly far more difficult, because it meant building new men and women.
Indeed, this apparently crazy 'lab' had all chances to explode under the pressure of human egos.
The person who had this 'strange' utopian idea was the French-born Mother, Sri Aurobindo's collaborator, who had set up the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in 1926.
Young couples -- representing 124 countries and 23 Indian states -- placed a handful of soil from their respective countries or states in a lotus bud-shaped foundation urn at the centre of the future city.
In the midst of this barren area, the banyan tree nearby would become the geographical centre of the city.
From her room in Pondicherry, the Mother announced: 'Greetings from Auroville to all men of goodwill; are invited to Auroville all those who thirst for Progress and aspire to a higher and truer life.' She later read the Charter of Auroville through an All India Radio broadcast, giving, in her frail voice, the first direction to the new project: 'Auroville belongs to nobody in particular. Auroville belongs to humanity as a whole. But to live in Auroville, one must be a willing servitor of the Divine Consciousness.'
The fact that it received the unanimous endorsement of the general assembly of UNESCO did not change the lives of the pioneers, who had to 'survive', often on millet, during the scorchingly hot summer of South India, living in rudimentary thatch huts.

In many ways, life is today easier than during the first years of the City of Dawn.
At first, only a couple of hundreds heard the call, to what the founder called a 'Great Adventure'.
However, after the Mother passed away in November 1973, life changed drastically. The Aurovilians were then left to stand on their own feet, materially and spiritually.
But they knew that they had to carry on the mission given to them by their mentor, to build the 'City the Earth Needs', a smart city before its time.
The task was immense, but the most immediate need was down-to-earth, to create shade from the scorching sun.
Aurovilians started to rejuvenate the arid land. They planted trees, built bunds and dams to stop the soil being washed away with the cyclonic monsoon rains and constructed the first primitive houses.
It is how the first pioneers became 'experts' in the environment, giving Auroville the reputed expertise it has today.
But the problems began accumulating and with recurrent shortage of funds, the Mother's words came back to everybody's mind: 'Auroville wants to be a self-supporting township.'
She had also said that in Auroville 'money would be no longer the Sovereign Lord, individual merit will have greater importance than the value due to material wealth and social position.' Money had nevertheless to be generated for the project to survive and develop.
It is JRD Tata -- a great supporter of the concept of Auroville since its early days -- who thought that Auroville crafts could become Auroville's best ambassadors.

In 1980, the Tata Group sponsored an exhibition Auroville Today which toured the major cities of India through the year. The exhibition was a tremendous success.
Nobody could have guessed then that just over three decades later, Auroville would be visited by thousands of people every day.
Auroville may not yet have succeeded in all its objectives, but the way of life chosen by the pioneers is today acknowledged by many, including the senior-most functionary of the Indian State.
The fact that Mr Modi was accompanied by the governor of Tamil Nadu, the lieutenant governor of Puducherry, as well as the Union Territory's chief minister and other dignitaries, was a homage to Auroville's founders and to the settlers, old and young, who have made the Dream the beginning of a reality.
For me, one of the best compliments Auroville received over the years came from an official at the Controller and Auditor General, which annually goes through Auroville's accounts. Having read too fast the Charter, he wrote in his report (later filed in Parliament), that Aurovilians are the 'living survivors of the Divine Consciousness'.
'Survivor' had replaced the original 'servitor'. An apt description indeed.
Let us hope that Auroville continues to survive, and the 'survivors' remain true to the Dream.

Tailpiece: I am grateful to Mr Karanjia for having given me my first chance as a journalist to write for Blitz on China affairs in the early 1990s. This is called the 'Irony of Life'!

(Photos twitted by the PMO)