SRI
AUROBINDO’S MESSAGE
[To
the Andhra University on the occasion of the
Presentation of the Sir Cattamanchi
Ramalinga Reddi National
Prize to him at the convocation held at the University on Dec. 11, 1948.]
You
have asked me for a message and anything I write, since it is to the Andhra University
that I am addressing my message, if it can be called by that name, should be
pertinent to your University, its function, its character and the work it has
to do. But it is difficult for me at this juncture when momentous decisions are
being taken which are likely to determine not only the form and pattern of this
country’s Government and administration but the pattern of its destiny, the
build and make-up of the nation character, its position in the world with
regard to other nations, its choice of what itself shall be, not to turn my
eyes in that direction. There is one problem facing the country which concerns
us nearly and to this I shall now turn and deal with it, however inadequately,–the
demand for the reconstruction of the artificial British-made Presidencies and provinces
into natural divisions forming a new system, new and yet founded on the
principle of diversity in unity attempted by ancient India. India, shut into a
separate existence by the Himalayas and the ocean, has always been the home of
a peculiar people with characteristics of its own recognisably
distinct from all others, with its own distinct civilisation, way of life, way
of the spirit, a separate culture, arts, building of society. It has absorbed all
that has entered into it, put upon all the Indian
stamp, welded the most diverse elements into its fundamental unity. But it has also
been throughout a congeries of diverse peoples, lands, kingdoms times, and, in
earlier times, republics also, diverse races, subnations
with a marked character of their own, developing different brands or forms of
civilisation and culture, many schools of art and architecture which yet
succeeded in fitting into the general Indian type of civilisation and culture.
India’s history throughout has been marked by a tendency, a constant effort to
unite all this diversity of elements into a single political whole under a
central imperial rule so that India might be politically as well as culturally one.
Even after a rift had been created by the irruption of the Mohammedan peoples
with their very different religion and social structure, there continued a
constant effort of political unification and there was a tendency towards a
mingling of cultures and their mutual influence on each other; even some heroic
attempts were made to discover or create a common religion built out of these
two apparently irreconcilable faiths and here too there were mutual influences.
But throughout India’s history the political unity was never entirely attained
and for this there were several causes,–first, vastness of space and
insufficiency of communications preventing the drawing close of all these
different peoples; secondly, the method used which was the military domination
by one people or one imperial dynasty over the rest of the country which led to
a succession of empires, none of them permanent; lastly, the absence of any
will to crush out of existence all these different kingdoms and fuse together
these different peoples and force them into a single substance and a single shape.
Then came the British Empire in India which recast the whole
country into artificial provinces made for its own convenience, disregarding
the principle of division into regional peoples but not abolishing that division.
For there had grown up out of the original elements a natural system of subnations with different languages, literatures and other
traditions of their own, the four Dravidian peoples, Bengal, Maharashtra,
Gujarat, Punjab, Sind, Assam, Orissa, Nepal, the
Hindi-speaking peoples of the North, Rajputana and
Bihar. British rule with its provincial administration, did not unite these
peoples but it did impose upon them the habit of a common type of
administration, a closer intercommunication through the English language and by
the education it gave there was created a more diffused and more militant form
of patriotism, the desire for liberation and the need of unity in the struggle
to achieve that liberation. A sufficient fighting unity was brought about to
win freedom, but freedom obtained did not carry with it a complete union of the
country. On the contrary, India
was deliberately split on the basis of the two-nation theory into Pakistan and Hindustan
with the deadly consequences which we know.
In
taking over the administration from Britain we had inevitably to follow
the line of least resistance and proceed on the basis of the artificial British-made provinces, at least for the
time; this provisional arrangement now threatens to become permanent, at least
in the main and some see an advantage in this permanence. For they think it
will help the unification of
the country and save us from the necessity of preserving regional subnations which in the past kept a country from an entire
and thoroughgoing unification and
uniformity. In a rigorous unification
they see the only true union, a
single nation with a standardised and uniform administration, language,
literature, culture, art, education,–all carried on through the agency of one
national tongue. How far such a conception can be carried out in the future one
cannot forecast, but at present it is obviously impracticable, and it is
doubtful if it is for India
truly desirable. The ancient diversities of the country carried in them great
advantages as well as drawbacks. By these differences the country was made the
home of many living and pulsating centres of life, art,
culture, a richly and brilliantly coloured diversity
in unity; all was not drawn up into a few provincial capitals or an imperial metropolis,
other towns and regions remaining subordinated and indistinctive or even
culturally asleep; the whole nation lived with a full life in its many parts
and this increased enormously the creative energy of the whole. There is no
possibility any longer that this diversity will endanger or diminish the unity
of India.
Those vast spaces which kept her people from closeness and a full interplay
have been abolished in their separating effect by the march of Science and the
swiftness of the means of communication. The idea of federation and a complete machinery for its perfect working have been discovered
and will be at full work. Above all, the spirit of patriotic unity has been too
firmly established in the people to be easily effaced or diminished, and it
would be more endangered by refusing to allow the natural play of life of the
sub-nations than by satisfying their legitimate aspirations. The Congress itself
in the days before liberation came had pledged itself to the formation of
linguistic provinces, and follow it out, if not immediately, yet as early as
may conveniently be, might well be considered the wisest course. India’s
national life will then be founded on her natural strengths and the principle
of unity in diversity which has always been normal to her and its fulfilment the fundamental course of her being and its very
nature, the Many in the One, would place her on the sure foundation of her Swabhava and Swadharma.
This
development might well be regarded as the inevitable trend of her future. For
the Dravidian regional peoples are demanding their separate right to a
self-governing existence; Maharashtra expects a similar concession and this
would mean a similar development in Gujarat and then the British made
Presidencies of Madras and Bombay
would have disappeared. The old Bengal Presidency had already been split up and
Orissa, Bihar and Assam
are now self-governing regional Peoples. A merger of the Hindi-speaking part of
the Central Provinces
and the U. P. would complete the process. An annulment of the partition of India might
modify but would not materially alter this result of the general tendency. A
union of States and regional peoples would again be the form of a united India.
In
this new regime your University will find its function and fulfilment.
Its origin has been different from that of other Indian Universities; they were
established by the initiative of a foreign Government as a means of introducing
their own civilisation into India, situated in the capital towns of the
Presidencies and formed as teaching and examining bodies with purely academic
aims: Benares and Aligarh
had a different origin but were all-India institutions serving the two chief
religious communities of the country. Andhra University, has been created by a patriotic Andhra initiative,
situated not in a Presidency capital but in an Andhra town and serving
consciously the life of a regional people. The home of a robust and virile and
energetic race, great by the part it had played in the past in the political
life of India, great by its achievements in art, architecture, sculpture,
music, Andhra looks back upon imperial memories, a place in the succession of
empires and imperial dynasties which reigned over a large part of the country;
it looks back on the more recent memory of the glories of the last Hindu empire
of Vijayanagar–a magnificent record for any people.
Your University can take its high position as a centre of light and learning,
knowledge and culture which can train the youth of Andhra to be worthy of their
forefathers: the great past should lead to a future as great or even greater.
Not only Science but Art, not only book-knowledge and information but growth in
culture and character are parts of a true education; to help the individual to
develop his capacities, to help the forming of thinkers and creators and men of
vision and action of the future, this is a part of its work. Moreover the life
of the regional people must not be shut up in itself; its youths have also to
contact the life of the other similar peoples of India interacting with them in
industry and commerce and the other practical fields of life but also in the
things of the mind and spirit. Also, they have to learn not only to be citizens
of Andhra but to be citizens of India;
the life of the nation is their life. An elite has to be formed which has an
adequate understanding of all great national affairs or problems and be able to
represent Andhra in the councils of the nation and in every activity and undertaking
of national interest calling for the support and participation of her peoples.
There is still a wider field in which India will need the services of men
of ability and character from all parts of the country, the international
field. For she stands already as a considerable international figure and this
will grow as time goes on into vast proportions; she is likely, in time to take
her place as one of the preponderant States whose voices will be strongest and their
lead and their action determinative of the world’s future. For all this she needs
men whose training as well as their talent, genius and
force of character is of the first order. In all these fields your University
can be of supreme service and do a work of immeasurable importance.
In
this hour, in the second year of its liberation the nation has to awaken to
many more very considerable problems, to vast possibilities opening before her
but also to dangers and difficulties that may, if not wisely dealt with, become
formidable. There is a disordered world-situation left by the war, full of
risks and sufferings and shortages and threatening another catastrophe which
can only be solved by the united effort of the peoples and can only be truly
met by an effort at world-union such as was conceived at San Francisco but has
not till now been very successful in the practice; still the effort has to be
continued and new devices found which will make easier the difficult transition
from the perilous divisions of the past and present to a harmonious world-order;
for otherwise there can be no escape from continuous calamity and collapse.
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 organisation of social and political
life, an immense military strength, practising
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 forfeiting its Swadharma,
losing its soul. Then ancient India
and her spirit might disappear altogether and we would have only one more
nation like the other 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 throwaway 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; but it cannot be said that the danger is
not there. There are indeed other numerous and difficult problems that face
this country or will very soon face it. No doubt, we will win through, but we
must not disguise from ourselves the fact that after these long years of
subjection and its cramping and impairing effects a great inner as well as
outer liberation and change, a vast inner and outer progress is needed if we
are to fulfil India’s true destiny.
–SRI AUROBINDO
“Equality
and vision of unity once perfectly gained, a supreme Bhakti, an all-embracing
devotion to the Divine, becomes the whole and the sole law of the being.”
–SRI AUROBINDO
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