Sri Aurobindo and Karl Marx- Integral Sociology and Dialectical Sociology (An Old and Rare Book)

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The present work, first published under the title History, Society and Polity, was conceived and written to settle my accounts with the sociological and historiographical ideas of Sri Aurobindo and Karl Marx. I did not feel quite satisfied with the way I settled my accounts with the said two thinkers. The ideological elements underlying their thoughts have not been adequately dealt with in my earlier work.

The problems of ideology and utopia have been engaging my attention for the last one decade or so, i.e., since the publication of History, Society and Polity. The book has gone out of print. I utilised the occasion of republication of it by adding a Postscript to it consisting of three chapters, viz., 'Possibility of Ideology: A Marxian De-construction', 'Possibility of Utopia: Aurobindite Reconstruction' and 'Ideology and Utopia: A Critique'. This Postscript reflects my current thinking on the subject with special reference to Karl Marx and Sri Aurobindo. Since the original book was a comparative study of their ideas, I have decided to give a new name, Sri Aurobindo and Karl Marx, to the book without any substantial change of the original text. However, the Post-script will show a slight shift in my thought on Marx. It seems to me that some positive aspects of Marx's thought did not receive my due attention in History, Society and Polity.

I have utilised some material of the Postscript in my Sri Aurobindo Memorial Lectures sponsored by the University Grants Commission and delivered at Bombay University on March 18-20, 1987. I am grateful to all those who commented upon and criticised those lectures.

The index has been updated in the light of the contents of the Postscript. I am grateful to all those who helped me in various ways in the preparation and publication of the book.

I have never seen Sri Aurobindo. A look at his portrait might lead one to believe that he had been an austere Yogi rather than one of the most creative thinkers that this country has ever produced. His face is calm and has an air of serenity about it. His features are sharp and reflect the thoughtful and powerful cast of his mind. Yet it is very difficult to gather from all these, the extraordinary creativity and imagination of the inner man.

Sri Aurobindo's life was quite unlike his placid outward appearance. He came from an aristocratic family of Calcutta and his father had been among the first to go to England for his medical education and return a complete Anglophile. The anglicized habits, ideas and ideals of his father had so much to do with the early life and education of Sri Aurobindo that he could not speak his mother-tongue even when he was a student at Cambridge. He was born on 15 August 1872 in Calcutta. He graduated from King's College, Cam-bridge, with a First Class in Classical Tripos. He mastered Greek and Latin, English and French and also picked up continental languages like German and Italian. At the instance of his family, he had to sit for the Indian Civil Service, but after formally qualifying for the service, he managed to get himself dis-qualified, and thus escaped the bondage.

He returned to India in 1893 and took up an administrative job in the secretariat of the then Maharaja of Baroda. Later on, he was appointed as the Vice-Principal of the local college and was for some time its acting Principal. During his stay in Baroda, 1893-1906, he was combining his teaching responsibility with secretarial work for the Maharaja, who had great respect for his competence and qualities. It was during this period that he started learning Bengali and reading the works of Bankim Chandra and Madhusudan.

Right from his student days he had two distinct creative dispositions, political and literary. He started writing poems, Songs to Myrtilla, for example, and taking some interest in Indian politics along with other Indian students in England. On his return to India, Sri Aurobindo's interest in politics deepened. Around the years 1902-3 he associated himself with some secret revolutionary societies in Bombay and Bengal. From his very early childhood Sri Aurobindo had developed a strong hatred and disgust for all kinds of cruelty and oppression. His foreign education had not diminished in the least his concern for the poor and the oppressed of India. Despite the occasional chill of poverty due to his father's financial mismanagement, Aurobindo had made very good use of his stay in England. But he had felt no regret in leaving England, for he had had no particular attachment to the past or misgiving regarding the future. He had developed definitely an attachment to English and European literature and culture, but not to England as a country. Perhaps emotionally, he had been more attached to France than to England.

Gradually Sri Aurobindo got more and more involved in the deeper issues of life and the larger issues of the nation and this could not be effectively followed up within the confines of the office he was holding in Baroda. So he decided to go to Calcutta and take up some assignments which were definitely closer to his heart. He joined Bepin Pal in the editing of the Bande Mataram and attended the Congress session in Calcutta at which the radicals, though still a minority, succeeded under the leadership of Tilak in getting a part of their political pro-grammes incorporated in the resolutions of the Congress. He also accepted the position of Principal of the newly founded Bengal National College. Journalism and teaching were quite to his liking, providing him adequate opportunities to expound his political ideas which he had been silently and vigorously nurturing right from the days of his youth and which had been especially strengthened after his having read the mantra of Vande Mataram in Bankim Chandra's Ananda Math. The mantra had left a deep spiritual-cum-political impact on his mind, drawing him closer to the circle of revolutionary action in Bengal. He continued his political work behind the scenes and in silence. The hour to join in a public movement had not yet come for him. Even while he was in the Baroda State Service, he used to visit his relations in Bengal from time to time. He came in contact with the Yugantar Revolutionary Centres which had already been formed and also met those who were taking a leading part in the State's politics to perceive for himself the general mood of the people and the possibilities of the revolutionary movement. Having now permanently settled down in Bengal he started a Journal, the Yugantar, which was to preach open revolt against British rule and the necessity of guerilla warfare. Sri Aurobindo's historical studies in the revolutions and the rebellions which led to the national liberation of America and Italy in the Modern Age and that of France against the English in the Middle Age had left him in no doubt about the necessity of violent revolution in the Indian context. He derived much of his inspiration from these movements and their leaders, especially Joan of Arc and Mazzini. Therefore, when he finally decided to join public politics around 1905, he was influenced more by the radicals like Tilak rather than by the moderates like Gokhale. He had an idea to capture the Congress and to transform it into an instrument for revolutionary action. In the pages of the Bande Mataram, Sri Aurobindo openly wrote for complete and absolute independence as the aim of political action in India, and rejected altogether the timid constitutional approach and agitation which would only talk and pass resolutions and recommendations to the British Government. Sri Aurobindo soon became the recognised leader of radical nationalism in Bengal. Naturally, his ideas and actions drew the angry attention of the Government and he was arrested on 5 May 1907. He was in jail for a year during the Magistrate's investigation and the trial in the Sessions Court. He was released the next year on 6 May. He spent most of the time in jail reading the Gita and the Upanishads and in intensive meditation and the practice of Yoga. C. R. Das success fully defended his case and he was honourably acquitted.