Title: Sri Aurobindo and His Ashram in Contemporary Newspapers: Volume I (ISBN: 978-81-957374-4-4) and Volume II ((ISBN: 978-81-957374-0-6)
Compiler and Editor: Anurag Banerjee
Number of Pages: Volume I: 708; Volume II: 618 (hardbound and printed in royal size with jacket)
Price: Volume I: Rs. 1150; Volume II: Rs. 1050.
Winner of Golden Book Award 2024. Sponsored by Wings Publications International, the Golden Book Award has been declared Asia’s most prestigious book award by Business Standard newspaper.
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Sri Aurobindo and His Ashram in Contemporary Newspapers, edited by Sri Anurag Banerjee is a compilation of meticulously chosen mostly unpublished articles, reports, letters of Sri Aurobindo and about Sri Aurobindo, in two volumes, covering the years between 1909 and 1940. The editor’s professed objective is to bring to light little known or unknown facts about the activities of the Indian Press in tracking and tracing Sri Aurobindo’s life and activities ‘after November 1910’. He has succeeded in this and done more, the contents go beyond the suggestion of the title and offer much more as the reader will know as he explores the thousand odd pages of the two volumes, coming upon forceful, illuminating articles on varied topics relating to the many aspects of Sri Aurobindo’s thoughts and visions. Tributes, criticisms, opinionated reviews, representations, misrepresentations, recordings, all together form a plentiful collection of documents, much more than the ‘historical significance of newspaper reports’. We certainly have enough food for thought here.
The selection is compelling indeed and carefully done, and what makes such a copious array of topics comprehensible is the setting of these in chronological pattern, which helps the reader form a fair idea of the changing trends in socio-political thoughts over the decades. It deserves a careful reading as it offers not only reports and reviews, but reviews of reviews, biographical sketches, which may aptly be considered as miniature biographies, along with commentaries, sometimes extensive, on Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy and the Arya writings in general.
A major part of the edition consists of character sketches which does justice to the title of Sri Anurag’s compilation in a convincing way. He has taken care to include here articles on Sri Aurobindo by B.C. Pal, J.L. Banerji, R. MacDonald, Barindra Kumar Ghose, Dhirendranath Ghose, Anilbaran Roy, Suddhananda Bharati, published in widely circulated newspapers of the times like The Modern Review, The Standard Bearer, The Calcutta Review, The Pioneer, The Sunday Times, The Statesman, The Hindu, Amrita Bazar Patrika, Times of India, ranging between a period of over three decades. It is a very commendable selection, informative, and a valuable exposition of historical material, as the articles reveal the opinions of critics on Sri Aurobindo swinging between the ‘Rishi of Pondicherry’ and a violence-inspiring Revolutionary, and including in its wide sweep the epithets of the ‘Divine Dreamer’, a mystic, a politician, a Nationalist, an ‘Indian’ poet! While we read Ramsay MacDonald’s account of Sri Aurobindo as more of a mystic than a politician, we are surprised to find another reviewer almost condemning him as a revolutionary who could incite men with his words and evoke violence. It is interesting to read the counter review from The Bombay Circle the next day, observing how the TOI ‘bottled up a mixture of ill-will and vindictive animosity’, putting forward its own arguments in favour of Sri Aurobindo’s contribution, Tapasya, oblation. The Amrita Bazar Patrika’s review of the Alipur Bomb case is an interesting read, and quotes The Statesman’s insinuation of Sri Aurobindo. In a 1929 article also this paper attempted to clear some misconceptions and allegations regarding Sri Aurobindo. On a different note is Dhirendranath’s assessment of Sri Aurobindo as an Indian poet following the comparison with Western poets like Wordsworth, Emerson and Goethe. It is interesting to note how opinions underwent a change over time and the newspaper articles and review focused more on the Yogi and Mystic Aurobindo. As we see in E. Govinda Nayar’s 1940 article in The Sunday Timeslabelling him as Rishi, Philosopher, Yogi and Scientist combined. Other reports focus on Sri Aurobindo’s gospel of ‘New Construction’, his Yoga, work, mission. We also can glimpse here comparative accounts of Sri Aurobindo’s mission and message, in a few 1930 articles published in The Sunday Times, The Bombay Chronicle, for instance. There was a splurge of articles during the thirties, on Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga, his cult, his philosophies and Sri Anurag Banerjee has done a commendable job of making the selections to include in his books, which throw light on the competitive mode of contemporary journalism alongside giving the reader critical opinions of some great exponents of Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga and philosophy. The diversity incites the interest of the curious readeras he comes across articles like Sri Aurobindo and Modern Culture, Transformation and Sri Aurobindo,or such as discuss the significance of Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga and its relevance in modern times. Another newspaper article focuses on the ‘new’ in Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga, highlighting the ‘freedom from special thought-forms’. A 1939 Calcutta Review article by Haridas Chaudhury compares the Aurobindonian philosophy of evolution with Western thoughts. Much insight is to be gained by these reflections, and the different perspectives afforded serve as a kind of guidance to those already initiated in Aurobindonian studies as well as to beginners in the field. Some reports may well be studied as miniature biographies, like Jyotish Chandra Ghose’s 1929 article or the 1935 article by Adharchandra Das. There were reviews and reports about Sri Aurobindo’s life and works being written in other languages as well. Articles like these reflecting different viewpoints, controversies, conflicts published in different newspapers, will be of special interest to one interested in studying the life of Sri Aurobindo, especially the Pondicherry phase. And what would have taken long years of research, have been brought together in Anurag Banerjee’s exhaustive compilation, which makes, among other things, the work of research much easier. Of course, all the well-coordinated articles may be read for their literary value and their own sake too.
Apart from newspaper articles commenting on Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga and philosophy, the editor Sri Anurag Banerjee has also taken care to publish several reports paying tributes and homage to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother over a long period of time. There is one by Rabindranath Tagore also, and another by a Chinese professor who includes in his report his observations about the Ashram, about Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy, about Prayers and Meditations. T.V.K. Sastri’s profoundly thought-out article on ‘The Divine Mother and the Human Personality’ is worth more than a passing read. The Birthday and Darshan Day messages reported in various newspapers like The Statesman, Amrita Bazar Patrika, Hindustan Standard also feature in these edited volumes.
Reports on and about Sri Aurobindo and his Ashram are amply collected and included in Sri Anurag’s edition and which closely justifies the title of the two volumes. Framed around the 1920s mainly and continuing upto 1940, there were numerous reports documenting life in the Ashram in papers like The Sunday Times, The Hindu, Advance,Amrita Bazar Patrika, Federated India, The Indian Express. Some, like the one by Jatindranath Sen Gupta, comment on the inner life of the Ashram, on the Mother, on their Sadhana. There are several accounts by Sri Aurobindo himself published in several newspapers. Another interesting segment of these edited volumes is the review of books by Sri Aurobindo. Arranged chronologically, the reviews cover and extend their range from the early Bande Mataram writings to the Pondicherry works. The reviews of translations done by Sri Aurobindo throw light on the constraints of translating from the Sanskrit. We also have here some of Sri Aurobindo’s replies to reviews, for instance, the one in The Hindu, 1914, discussing The Secret of the Veda. Very interesting to read are reviews of Sri Aurobindo’s poems, like Ahana, or his poetry in general, substantiating how this poetry is the ‘meeting-place of European Classicism and Asiatic Universalism’. Reviews of Sri Aurobindo’s The Future Poetry, as it was serialized in the Arya, are also included in these volumes. They reflect on the character of English poetry in general, and incite the reader of the reports to read the entire book as the reviewer of the Modern Review justly says that it ‘deserves the serious consideration of all true lovers of poetry’. The 1920 review of War and Self-Determination in Prabuddha Bharata is worth reading for its sharp observations, praises and reservations all. The Modern Review analyses the same work as philosophy of contemporary politics, reserving more of praise and closer to the text perhaps. There are reviews of almost all of Arya writings with critical comments and analyses of Sri Aurobindo’s views on art, culture, politics, philosophy, literature, poetry. In the 1924 review of the System of National Education, the reviewer in The Statesman dwells upon Sri Aurobindo’s concept as based on Hindu psychology focusing more on the meaning of education rather than on its practice. We also get to read about several comparative reviews of different works of Sri Aurobindo’s which reflect contemporary thoughts. Some works which had had several reviews in succession include Sri Aurobindo’s The Brain of India, The Mother, Essays on the Gita. The Riddle of this World has more than ten reviews in newspapers like Free India, The Scholar, Amrit Bazar Patrika, Advance, Free Press Journal, The Bombay Chronicle and others, in the early 1930s. The same papers also published as many reviews of Sri Aurobindo’s Lights on Yoga almost during the same time. Thus we get many viewpoints on these works of Sri Aurobindo and the interested reader or researcher can have so much to explore.Similarly, the Bases of Yoga has some lengthy reviews as the one by P.K. Sen in Advance in 1936, or The Hindu review or the review in Prabuddha Bharata. The reviews of The Life Divine offer in miniature Sri Aurobindo’s gospel of philosophy and touch upon the salient points. These were mostly 1940 articles in newspapers like Hindusthan Standard, Visva Bharati Quarterly, Prabuddha Bharata, The Calcutta Review, The Theosophist and others.
Another attractive feature of Sri Anurag Banerjee’s edition of newspaper reports includes reviews of reviews and books on Sri Aurobindo, apart from direct reviews and Sri Aurobindo’s own works. Some of these may be specially recommended for reading, like the review of Adharchandra Das’s Sri Aurobindo and the Future of Mankind, or The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo by Shuddhananda Bharati. A number of articles on Sri Aurobindo’s views on the Gita are available which include the deep and lengthy analysis by Prof. Mahendranath Sircar in Amrit Bazar Patrika, and K. Govinda Nair’s published in The Sunday Times, and Anilbaran Roy’s Discourses on the Gita. A 1938 special article by Adharchandra Das on Sri Aurobindo’s educational philosophy, insHindusthan Standard is also included in this edition. There is another review of Tagore’s Home and the World in The Modern Review by Jadunath Sarkar, which is interesting for the critic’s analysis of the novel as a ‘reply to Aurobindo Ghosh’ and dwelling on some aspects of the Swadeshi movement. More interesting to read is Tagore’s reply to this review where he refutes some of the observations of the reviewer J. Sarkar. Articles appearing one after another in newspapers of contemporary times, of which Sri Anurag has edited a faithful compilation, bear testimony to the fact of the acceptance, popularity and interest in the works of the Yogi Sri Aurobindo, and his Ashram. It is indeed interesting to observe how the media found space for regular publishing of these articles and reviews.
Sri Anurag Banerjee’s compilation includes not only reports and reviews, but also extracts of interviews, lectures, correspondences, radio-talks, conversations as published variously. Poems by Sri Aurobindo are also included in these books, some early drafts of poems published are helpful for comparative analysis and also on analyzing the methods of poetic creation. Included also are poems by other poets like Nirodbaran, D. K. Roy, N.K. Gupta, and these add to and enhance the quality of the edited volumes. Here are also excerpts, and long ones too, from the Arya and the Karmayogin, featuring The Life Divine, The Future Poetry, Synthesis of Yoga, and Sri Aurobindo’s other writings on Indian art, culture, nationalism. Thus, along with the critics’ viewpoints, we have Sri Aurobindo’s own works to refer to also. Included in these volumes are sayings and quotations from Sri Aurobindo. These are only temptations to seek for more. The editor does not seem to have missed out on anything!
Sri Aurobindo and His Ashram in Contemporary Newspapers has surely gained its special place in the academic world which seeks to know, interpret, study Sri Aurobindo’s life and works. Sri Anurag Banerjee has rendered excellent service by bringing together, in chronological order, for more clarity and comprehension, the profoundly suggestive and critically opinionated articles on various aspects of Sri Aurobindo’s life. We reserve our thanks for the perseverance, sincerity and ‘passionate quest’ of Sri Anurag Banerjee which has transformed his ‘casual search’ into a voluminous treatise with its ‘repertoire of information’ even like his earlier work Sri Aurobindo: His Political Life and Activities. Twelve years of effort has given us a timeless book, gathered from popular or lesser-known newspapers, personally preserved documents, even scrapbook jottings, information from all possible sources, which may not have been available at all, or by great difficulty, this makes the task of the researcher easier. It is sure to benefit the reader, researcher, student, scholar alike. It is a valuable source of reference and will be counted among the already increasing source materials of research in Aurobindonian studies. The quality of production, the paper, the binding, printing, get-up are excellent too. With its breadth of scope, it has an encyclopedic cast. The edited volumes of Sri Aurobindo and His Ashram in Contemporary Newspapers are recommended as mandatory reading.
Dr. Madhumita Dutta
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About the Reviewer: Dr. Madhumita Dutta is an Associate Professor of English in Vidyasagar College for Women, Kolkata. She obtained her Ph.D degree from Visva Bharati University, Santiniketan, for her thesis on Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri. She has presented papers at several national and international conferences in India and abroad and contributed articles in various books and journals. Her areas of interest are Sri Aurobindo’s Studies, Indian poetry and drama, spiritualism and feminism. A recipient of ‘Nolini Kanta Gupta Smriti Puraskar’ (2023), she is the author of Savitri: A Study in Style and Symbolism (2013), Sri Aurobindo: A Legend (2016), Kālī: The Feminist Agenda (2019), Sri Aurobindo’s Poetry: The Many and the Harmony (2021) and Gaṇeśa: A Collection of Short Stories (2021) and is the co-editor of Urvasie: From Mythological To Postmodern Reflections (2021).