Sri Aurobindo Ghosh: Life, Thoughts, Activities, Books

One of the pioneers of Bengal’s Renaissance and a vocal proponent of militant nationalism in Bengal was Aurobindo Ghosh. His political thoughts and revolutionary activities deeply influenced the political and cultural life of India and inspired Indian students in London to form the ‘Indian Majlish.’ According to him, “political freedom is the life breath of a nation.”

Aurobindo Ghosh’s educational philosophy revived India’s cultural heritage and developed a sense of national consciousness among every Indian. His work remains relevant in society and politics, and his philosophical thoughts have inspired human self-development and spiritual growth. Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das paid tribute to Aurobindo Ghosh by calling him the “philosopher of nationalism and poet of self-reliance” and characterized him as a “concrete symbol of humanism.”

Early Life and Education of Sri Aurobindo Ghosh

• Aurobindo Ghosh was born on August 15, 1872, at 4:50 PM in an aristocratic family in Kolkata. The father of Aurobindo Ghosh was Krishna Dhun Ghose, mother Swarnalata Devi, and grandfather Rajnarayana Basu were prominent personalities of contemporary society. He married Mrinalini Devi, the daughter of Bhupal Chandra Bose, in 1901. His family life was not particularly joyful.
• In 1892, Aurobindo Ghosh received a first-class classical trip scholarship at Cambridge University. He spent his school and college years in England. Later, in 1893, he returned to his homeland and obtained a position as a sub-principal at Gaekwar College of Baroda with a monthly salary of 750 rupees, where he taught until 1906. During his stay in Baroda, he came into contact with a leader of a secret revolutionary organization from Maharashtra named Thakursaheb and was initiated into revolutionary ideals. During the Bengal Partition movement, Aurobindo Ghosh accepted the principal position of the newly established ‘Bengal National School and College’ through Satyendranath Tagore’s efforts. His salary was 75 rupees per month.

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Political Thoughts of Aurobindo Ghosh

• The primary source of Rishi Aurobindo Ghosh’s political inspiration was the French struggle against the British in the Middle Ages and the unification movements of America and Italy in the modern era. He was an ardent admirer of Joan of Arc and Giuseppe Mazzini. Aurobindo Ghosh was initiated into the ideals of freedom at the age of just 14. He believed that freedom would come through revolution. In 1905, he came to the forefront of the revolutionary movement. During the Swadeshi Movement, he also took active initiatives regarding the ‘Passive Resistance’ program. In the “Uttarpara” speech, Aurobindo Ghosh said, “The Swadeshi movement began, and I also entered the world of politics.”
• When Rishi Aurobindo Ghosh joined politics, there was an extreme conflict between the Moderates and extremist groups in the Indian National Congress. Moderates believed that the application policy was the right way to secure certain privileges and political and economic demands for the highly educated and upper classes of society. However, Aurobindo Ghosh was a leader of the extremist group. Lala Lajpat Rai, Bipin Chandra Pal, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Aurobindo Ghosh, and Ashwini Kumar Dutta were among the prominent leaders of the extremist group. The primary demand of this group was to organize the general public to achieve Swaraj, which was called ‘Passive Resistance.’
• Instead of relying on the application policy and the British government’s discretion, he advised all people to achieve independence through self-reliance and constructive work. He told to learn from French republicanism and the French Revolution, rather than following the British government’s attempts at reforming governance through various laws. He recommended forming a national movement with the support of the lower-middle class. Rishi Aurobindo Ghosh did not think of Swaraj as merely political liberation; for him, Swaraj meant complete independence. He also considered the spiritual development of India’s people as a part of Swaraj.

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Political Activities of Rishi Aurobindo Ghosh

Some important events in Aurobindo Ghosh’s political activities include joining the Swadeshi and Boycott Movements, joining Anushilan Samiti, joining the Jugantar group, and involving himself in the Alipore Bomb Case Conspiracy, which is described below:

Swadeshi and Boycott Movement against Partition of Bengal

• He fully involved himself in the Swadeshi and Boycott Movement of 7 August 1905. He favoured implementing a boycott as an all-out weapon of this movement. Through the newspaper ‘Bande Mataram,’ he propagated his ideology of passive resistance by criticizing and opposing the constructive Swadeshi movement. There were four areas of passive resistance: economy, education, justice, and administration. He promoted the ideal of Swaraj (the end of British rule) through this magazine.
• He said that the abolition of bureaucracy was not possible through self-power alone and that moral and social revival was not possible without political freedom. By boycott, he meant not only British goods but also British education, jobs, titles, laws, etc.

Anushilan Samiti

• At the beginning of the twentieth century, Aurobindo Ghosh became interested in organizing a secret society. To successfully achieve this objective, he was appointed as the first co-president of the Anushilan Samiti, established on March 24, 1902. Chittaranjan Das was also co-president. In Anushilan Samiti, along with stick-fighting and physical training, they would teach biographies of Giuseppe Mazzini, Giuseppe Garibaldi, and revolutionary movement histories of other countries. By then, under Aurobindo Ghosh’s direction, his younger brother Barindra Kumar Ghosh and Jatindranath Bandyopadhyay (whose nickname was Niralamba Swami) had come to Bengal.
• After arriving in Bengal, Jatindranath Bandyopadhyay established another Samiti on Circular Road with young members and others. The Samiti members had to take an oath to try to establish a “Dharma Raj” (righteous kingdom). Chittaranjan Das and Aurobindo Ghosh spent considerable money on this Samiti. During this time, there was a difference of opinion about political ideology between Barindra and Jatindranath; he came to Kolkata and resolved the conflict.

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Jugantar or Yugantar Party

Through Barindra Kumar Ghosh’s efforts and with the collaboration of Bhupendranath Dutta, Aurobindo Ghosh, Abinash Chandra Bhattacharya, and others, they published a magazine called ‘Jugantar.’ The Jugantar magazine openly called for an armed revolution, and it was this newspaper that first propagated intense hatred towards the British. Through the magazine “Mukti Kon Pathe” (Liberation by Which Path), the Yugantar group spread revolutionary ideas among Indian soldiers and advised learning weapon manufacturing techniques and collecting weapons from abroad. Behind all of these, Aurobindo Ghosh’s invisible hand was at work.

Alipore Bomb Case Conspiracy

• When a plan was made to assassinate the tyrannical Magistrate Douglas Kingsford, the British government transferred him to Muzaffarpur. In 1908, under Barindra Kumar Ghosh’s direction, Khudiram Bose and Prafulla Chaki went to Muzaffarpur to kill Kingsford. However, they mistakenly threw a bomb into Miss Kennedy’s and her daughter’s car, resulting in both of their deaths. This terrorist activity in Bengal is known as the 1908 ‘Alipore Bomb Case Conspiracy,’ also known as ‘Manicktolla Bomb Conspiracy’ or ‘Muraripukur Conspiracy.’
• After this incident, Prafulla Chaki committed suicide, and Khudiram Bose was hanged. Afterwards, the police searched the garden house in Muraripukur and recovered many explosive materials. Aurobindo Ghosh, Barindra, Ullaskar Dutta, Hemchandra Kanungo and 34 other revolutionaries were arrested. During the trial of the Manicktolla Bomb Conspiracy, a weak-minded revolutionary named Narendranath Gosain or Goswami became a state witness and betrayed the group. In retaliation, on September 1, 1908, Kanailal Dutta and Satyendranath Bose killed Narendranath in prison. Consequently, both were hanged.
• Although the renowned barrister Chittaranjan Das’s legal expertise ultimately secured Aurobindo Ghosh’s release, Barindra, Ullaskar, and many others were transported to the Andaman Islands for life imprisonment. The chief judge of the Alipore Bomb Case Conspiracy was Beachcroft. The government’s lawyers in this case were Eardley Norton and the Bengali lawyer Ashutosh Biswas. After his release, Aurobindo Ghosh severed all connections with politics in 1910 and became immersed in spiritual practice in Pondicherry.

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Sri Aurobindo Ghosh Books

• In 1893-94, Sri Aurobindo Ghosh first explicitly criticized the policy of the moderate Congress leaders and the goal of self-governance through his writing ‘New Lamps for Old’ in the Indu-Prakash magazine. Through this essay, he inspired all citizens. In his essay, he wrote that the most important problem of the contemporary era was to create a connection between ‘the Burgess or the middle class’ and the ‘Proletariate’ class because the ‘Proletariate’ was the controller of the moment. Therefore, any success without them would be impossible. However, by ‘Proletariate,’ Aurobindo generally meant the common people of villages and cities, and he wanted to inspire them through Hindu revivalist ideology.
• In 1905, Sri Aurobindo Ghosh personally took over the editorship of an English-language weekly newspaper called ‘Bande Mataram’. It was first published on August 6, 1906. As the editor of Bande Mataram, he used the paper’s columns to present irrefutable arguments about Indian nationalism and the unjust behaviour of the English towards Indians. He extended one hand towards the extremists and the other towards the revolutionaries.
• By reading Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s ‘Anandmath’ and Sister Nivedita’s ‘Kali the Mother,’ he witnessed the nature of the Bengali mother as a source of strength. Influenced by these writings, in 1905, he wrote an essay called ‘Bhawani Mandir.’ In this essay, he compared the mother of the nation to a great power and asked all Indians to love her.
• In ‘The Life Divine,’ there is mention of spirituality, philosophical knowledge, and science-based consciousness, and he also showed that for the comprehensive development of human life, knowledge of spirituality alongside science is necessary.
• ‘The Synthesis of Yoga’ written by Aurobindo Ghosh in 1948, contains the principles and practical applications of comprehensive yoga. This book combines Karma Yoga, Jnana Yoga, and Bhakti Yoga to provide a holistic concept of Yoga.
• Other notable books he wrote include Essays on the Gita in 1922, Collected Poems and Plays (1942), The Secret of the Veda, The Ideal of Human Unity in 1949, The Human Cycle in 1949, Letters on Yoga, and Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol in 1950.

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Sri Aurobindo Ghosh’s Philosophy of Education

• According to Aurobindo Ghosh, the education system introduced by the East India Company and later by the British government completely rejected India’s educational system, and there was no connection between this system and India’s civilization and culture. Therefore, he emphasized the national education movement, national educational institutions, and comprehensive educational development. The goal of this comprehensive education was to achieve the overall development of a person, especially physical, mental, and spiritual growth.
• He gave significant importance to public education, practical education, science-based education, technical and vocational education, education through the mother tongue, and the spread of education. He argued that if education was provided in the national universities using the mother tongue, students would become respectful towards national heritage and culture and would be motivated to fulfil national hopes and aspirations.
• Aurobindo Ghosh emphasized the comprehensive development and spread of education within the Indian cultural framework. He advocated for an education system that would respect Indian values and heritage while also recommending the inclusion of good aspects of Western education in the curriculum.
• He viewed education as a dynamic process and therefore said that the curriculum should be flexible, adapting to contemporary needs while also encouraging critical thinking and creativity among students.

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