LITERATURE-LIGHT AND DELIGHT. 52. HISTORY IN LITERATURE

LITERATURE-LIGHT AND DELIGHT

52.HISTORY IN LITERATURE

We have all studied some history- at least in school or college. We have read literature too. But our academic system is such that we have been taught to regard them as two distinct subjects.

We might have read Jawaharlal Nehru's reflections from his cell in the Ahmednagar fort prison in Hindi or his Tryst with Destiny speech. We might have read Sri Aurobindo's Uttarpara Speech ( 30 May, 1909). Keen students of our history might be aware of C.R.Das's defence of Sri Aurobindo in the Alipore Bomb Case. The first one we read because it was in our text-book. The others only interested persons would have read. 

At one level, this illustrates the difference between compulsory reading foisted on young people through the education system, and the free reading of interested persons. The motives differ greatly. The school system forces the hidden govt.agenda on people.Even govts in the so called free countries have a hand in deciding what should or should not be taught. As some formal schooling is now required for most jobs, including that of a sweeper,people have no choice. Outside the school, most reading is voluntary.The level and quality of true education is indicated by what people read on their own, after they leave school. G.K.Chesterton it was who said, 'let not study stand in the way of your education'.

At another level, how do we treat all this material? It may be considered 'academic' stuff if it forms part of our formal study; it may be seen as history if it is included in a history book; it may be considered literature if it forms part of a general anthology- which indeed is quite rare in India. How many of us would regard them as both history and literature?

Each of those pieces arose in a specific historical context. The first two merely recorded or reflected history. Nehru was in prison and he describes there how he rather started liking the place after a few days. (Dilchaspi lene lage- is what he said exactly, if my memory has not failed after 57 years). The other speech he made on the midnight of 14th August,1947 when we became free. But both speeches connected with Sri Aurobindo not only arose out of a historical context, but they made history.

Sri Aurobindo too gave a message on the occasion of Independence, as requested by AIR. It too is historical- 15th August being his 75th birthday! And his message is historical also on account of the content he put into it. But most Indians are not aware of it. Nehru's speech is nothing compared to Sri Aurobindo's message-but Nehru was in power, and so his speech was celebrated, while Sri Aurobindo, who was the first Indian to call for complete Freedom, a quarter century before Gandhi's Congress adopted it in January,1930, was forgotten, since he left active politics in 1910, 9 years before Gandhi came on the scene! (Incidentally, Congress goondas were annoyed that Independence came on Sri Aurobindo's birthday, a decision in which he had no hand,and they descended on Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry and pelted stones, and one ashramite  succumbed to the injuries.)

Sri Aurobindo returned to India after 14 years of stay and study in England, in 1893- the year in which Gandhi left for South Africa, and Vivekananda went to America! He entered Baroda state service, but the national situation slowly drew him into the vortex of politics- first secretly and then openly. His writings were a departure from the Congress culture of prayer and petition;the old guard was disturbed, and the administration woke up. The partition of Bengal in 1905 brought him into prominence, and he gave the programme of Swaraj, Swadeshi,  Boycott, Disobedience of foreign laws( Passive resistance), National education, settlement of disputes outside the British courts, improvement of the condition of the poor etc- all later adopted by Gandhi, without due acknowledgement to Sri Aurobindo! The country reverberated with the cry of Bande Mataram! He and Tilak engineered the split in the Surat Congress in 1907 and made the nationalist elements the foremost voice of complete Indian Independence. The British administration was shaken and demoralised, the Viceroy declared Sri Aurobindo 'the most dangerous man we have to deal with at present'- an honour not earned even by Gandhi: he was at most considered a nuisance! The administration wanted to silence him, implicated him in the Alipore Bomb case in May 1908, and he was put behind bars for a year in Alipore jail, most of the time in solitary confinement. But Mother India was behind him, even the British court could not convict him, and he walked free in May,1909. The Uttarpara speech was delivered after that! Such are the historical associations it evokes in a serious student of history, who does not rely solely on the concocted versions in govt. sponsored text-books.

But it became historical for another reason: it revealed for the first time the spiritual experiences of Sri Aurobindo in jail, his practice of the yoga of the Gita, his vision of everything as Vasudeva- the jail, its officers, its bars and bricks, his fellow prisoners. It also revealed to the world Sri Aurobindo's mission- to work for the mission of India in the world. He declared unequivocally: 'Sanatana dharma-that is nationalism for us'.He said India was rising for the sake of Sanatana Dharma!

The powers were unhappy with his release and some- how wanted to silence him- they feared no one else in the country, no other 'leader'. But he got his Adesh or Command,  and left British India and entered Pondicherry in April 1910 and from then till his Mahasamadhi on 5 December 1950 devoted himself to Yoga, blazing a new path. All that he wrote in the days of his political activity have been collected  and published under the title Bande Mataram. It constitutes commentary on the national situation, ideas on political science and supreme literature. No other Indian has written such English before or after him, on any subject. Few Englishmen have done it either! Compared to this, anything else written by anyone else is mere trash. Read it for yourself and judge.

Chitta Ranjan Das, summing up the defence of Sri  Aurobindo stated in the court :

.......a man like this who is being charged with the offences imputed to him stands not only before the bar in this Court but before the bar of the High Court of History and my appeal to you is this: 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.

More prophetic words have never been uttered in any court in history! And these words made Das too famous all over the country!

There is something to be said for the Judge, Mr. Beachcroft. He understood the govt. stakes in the case, understood their anxiety to have Sri Aurobindo convicted  above all, he understood the nuances of the defence and pronounced:

"Aurobindo Ghose, the most important accused in the case. He is the accused, whom more than any other the prosecution are anxious to have convicted and but for his presence in the docks there is no doubt that the case would have finished long ago.

"It is the case for the prosecution as well as for the defence  that he is of a very religious nature.

"His counsel argues that he is a Vedantist and that he has applied the doctrines of Vedantism to mould his political views; that as the doctrine of Vedantism applied to the individual is to look for the godhead within oneself and so to realize what is within oneself, so in the case of a nation, it can only grow by realizing what is best within itself, that no foreigner can give it that salvation, which it can only attain by methods indigenous to the country. His doctrines are not those of passive resistance, but of the realization of salvation by suffering. If the law is unjust, don't obey it but take the consequences. Do not be violent, but if the law is unjust, you are not bound morally to obey it; refuse to obey it and suffer. He has been saying to the people, you are not cowards, believe in yourselves and attain salvation, not by assistance from outside, but though yourselves. And this, Mr.Das says, is the key of his case.

"In Aurobindo's speeches....So far as these speeches went, they help the defence more than the prosecution.From them we get an idea of the stress he laid on national education,on lines other than those laid in Government schools, and this is in accordance with.... his policy that India is to find her salvation from within and not from without.

Even after his acquittal, the administration was trying to 'fix' Sri Aurobindo somehow- and even considered deportation. But better sense prevailed in England, and Lord Morley ,Secretary of State was firm and categorical. He wrote to the Viceroy Minto on 5 May 1910:

"As to the famous Arabindo.... the institution of proceedings against him was a foolish blunder.  (His writing) simply paraded passive resistance and abstention from taking part in public life. That may be odious and objectionable as you please, but it is at least doubtful whether any decent court will find it to be sedition.....As for deportation, I will not listen to it."

But the local administration issued a warrant against Sri Aurobindo late in April,1910, not knowing he had already left the country.

Incidentally, we must give credit to a certain trait in the British character, which did have a plain sense of justice. We may also remember that this trait had made an eminent person like Edmund Burke react against the wrong-doing of Warren Hastings and pursue Impeachment proceedings against him over a century earlier!. Gandhi's so called  non-violent methods could succeed only against the British. Hitler or Stalin would have finished him under an hour! This basic Anglo-Saxon string we see even today in the essential American: in spite of all the bullying that Uncle Sam indulges in around the world, it is still the American who is the greatest critic! It is this which makes us like the American still. Surely, such persons may not be many, but they are the  conscience-keepers  of the society! 

We can realise that Sri Aurobindo was not an ordinary politician. He had a spiritual vision of the country as Mother India, Mother Bhavani and therefore seeking her complete Independence was for him a religious quest. It was part of his Vedanta! It is an irony of fate, the twist of destiny that if any Hindu repeats those arguments now in Independent India, he will be dubbed a fundamentalist. The legislature, the judiciary, the fourth estate- they are all guardians of 'secularism'  which means every religion, other than Hinduism, can do anything in its name! But if Hindus talk of Hinduism, it becomes communalism or fundamentalism!

It is also a sad tale- how far our nationalist spirit is down since those days. When Bengal was partitioned on communal lines in 1905, the whole country rose in protest. But the subsequent leaders divided the whole country and justified it as being inevitable! Even now, Hindus have been evicted from their homes in Kashmir, and the whole country is maintaining a sacred silence!

Seen in this light, the whole of Sri Aurobindo's writings are supreme literature on  true Indian nationalism.If we study them carefully,we will understand how much Gandhi owes him! As I had shown elsewhere, wherever he followed the ideas of Sri Aurobindo, Gandhi was successful; wherever he deviated, he failed and created problems for the nation.  They were timely then, timeless now.

In literature proper, we have a specific category called 'historical' fiction. In English, Walter Scott's novels are the prime example, though we have Shakespeare's historical plays. In Tamil, we have the writings of Kalki. They are so called because they deal with some historical characters or events, though more imaginative characters and events are woven around them.

But if we think deeply, we find literature as such is historical- because every form of literature , especially what is considered realistic, arises in and reflects historical times and trends; they are related to specific historical contexts. Man is rooted in his environment, and cannot think beyond the context. But the greatness of great literature is that they raise issues which have permanent value or relevance. The trial and death of Socrates relates to one historical Greek figure- but the issue it raises has relevance for the whole of humanity. Gandhi was thrown out of a train for being coloured; he was instrumental in throwing out an empire.

But even when the novelists or writers do not deal with specific historical events or characters, they can hardly escape the spirit of the times being reflected in their writings. Thus, while Dickens deals with the Gordon riots of 1780 and the mob violence resulting in the sacking of Newgate in Barnaby Rudge, and French Revolution in the Tale of Two Cities, his novels generally deal with the socio-economic conditions of his times, especially around London. Thomas Hardy did not deal with any historical event or character, though there is a minor reference to the Napoleonic Wars in the Trumpet Major. But he dealt with the change that was sweeping over the society consequent on the industrialisation: the disruption of rural life and relationships, landscape and folklore. On a different level, he also dealt with human and class relationships and identities, the state of romantic love, marriage, gender issues, religion, etc.  On yet another level, he dealt with how things went wrong- how man was fated to fail- something like epic tragedy. His most serious works- the last two novels- were subject to hostile criticism, for being pessimistic and immoral. But these  very themes  with which Victorian society was unwilling to deal openly,have become serious subjects of psychological or psychoanalytical study subsequently.Divorce has become legal, and infidelity in marriage,common. In that sense, he hinted at a (future) 'historical' trend. Even his imaginary creation the 'Wessex' landscape is full of the spirit of history!

I have always felt that while Dickens reflected the history of his times,, Hardy reflected upon it. He left his imprint on the future. His pessimism is indeed deeply disturbing at times but we cannot wish away the tragedy and crookedness in much of human life.We cannot also deny that religion has  largely failed either to deal with the tragedy or remove the crookedness. At most, it only justifies 'God's ways among men'- whatever it may mean.

There is a lot of good literature everywhere, in any discipline. And there is history in literature! Let us not believe in artificial, academic distinctions, and enjoy both!

  

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