Politics
(Sri Aurobindo:) “All politics is a show. In the British Parliament it is the Civil Service people who are really behind everything and these people whose names are never known do the real work. The Ministers are only their mouthpieces, except for a few rare cases like Churchill and Hore-Belisha. The Civil Servants have been at their job for their lifetime and they know everything about it.”[1]
(Sri Aurobindo:) “...the shifty language of politics, — that strange language full of Maya and falsities, of self-illusion and deliberate delusion of others, which almost immediately turns all true and vivid phrases into a jargon, so that men may fight in a cloud of words without any clear sense of the thing they are battling for.”[2]
- “Would it not sometimes be dangerous to speak truth, e.g., in politics, war, revolution? The truth-speaking moralist who would always insist on not concealing anything may bring disaster by revealing the plans and movements of one side to the opposite side.
(Sri Aurobindo:) Politics, war, revolution are things of stratagem and ambush — one cannot expect the truth there. From what I have heard Gandhi himself has played tricks and dodges there. Das told me it was impossible to lead men in politics or get one’s objects without telling falsehoods by the yard and he was often feeling utterly disgusted with himself and his work, but supposed he would have to go through with it to the end.”[3]
- ↑ Talks with Sri Aurobindo (Vol. 2), p.516, 1 March 1940
- ↑ War and Self-Determination, p.623, “Self-Determination”
- ↑ Letters on Himself and the Ashram, p.24
See also