Sri Aurobindo and the New Thought in Indian Politics (An Old and Rare Book)

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As one associated with Sri Aurobindo in the National Council of Education and the Bengal National College, 1 deem it a privilege to be asked to write the Foreword to the work entitled "Sri Aurobindo and the New Thought in Indian Politics" written in collaboration by two distinguished authors. They have long been working on the subject of what is known as the Swadeshi Movement, the term coined by the then leaders of the Bengal politics headed by Surendra Nath Banerjee, Bipin Chandra Pal, Upadhyay Brahmabandhab, Rabindra Nath Tagore, Sri Aurobindo, and other leaders. It was the prelude to the larger revolutionary movement which aimed directly at the achievement by India of her inalienable status of Purna Swaraj or complete sovereignty. In fact, the Freedom Movement of India really dates from the Swadeshi Movement of Bengal with its larger programme comprising the triple Boycott of British goods, schools and law-courts. It was left to Rabindra Nath Tagore to give this broader movement a philosophy in his comprehensive essay in Bengali known as "Swadeshi Samaj". the first exposition of the Non-co-operation Movement which later made Gandhiji famous.

The book before us is an exposition and unfoldment of the New Thought which inspired the Swadeshi Movement. It was for India not a mere struggle for economic independence but connoted a general expression standing for India's struggle for absolute Swaraj in independence of British rule. Towards this conception of Purna Swaraj few Indian leaders have made more potent and fruitful contributions than Sri Aurobindo. He also tried to transform this ideal into a reality by thinking out the practical steps for it. At this time Sri Aurobindo felt moved to join Bengal politics. Very soon he won for himself his destined place in the revolutionary movement of the country. This movement he directly inspired by the stream of his continuous contributions through the daily Bande Mataram. The editorials he contributed to this daily were read with avidity all over the country in the days when such literature was rather rare.

The work, as the title suggests, seeks to present to the reader after the lapse of more than half-century the New Thought in Indian politics which Sri Aurobindo placed before his countrymen in the days of the Swadeshi Movement that shook Bengal, nay India, to her depths at the beginning of the present century. It was a movement not entirely political in charater but essentially a spiritual movement for the recovery of our ancient self and greatness, our individuality as a nation through political emancipation. Bande Mataram, the vehicle of the new spirit, developed before long, under the able editorship of Aurobindo Ghose (later known as Sri Aurobindo), into the premier organ of revolutionary Nationalism in India, giving a most powerful expression to the growing will of the people and sketching their ideals and aspirations with the greatest fidelity to the national soul. In the editorials that he wrote out for that English daily during the years 1906-08, Sri Aurobindo not only preached with unflinching candour the ideal of Complete Independence for India, one and undivided, but formulated in clear logical terms a complete programme of political action including in its embrace both violence and non-violence, for realizing the ideal. The articles here collected together from the obscure and brittle files of that memorable paper, reveal him as a true poet and prophet of Nationalism, as an original political thinker and a great lover of humanity. They may profitably be read along with the two earlier volumes by the the same authors, entitled Bande Mataram and Indian Nationalism (1957) (partly incorporated in this book) and Sri Aurobindo's Political Thought (1958). These together utilise a common source of material for the history and culture of Modern India.