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<b><font size="4">Independence<FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"> </FONT>and its Sanction</font></b></p>
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<BR>
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<span style="font-size:12pt;">INDEPENDENCE is not a gift which one can receive from
another, it is a prize that has to be won. In the words of the poet
Bhasa, used in respect of empire, we can say also of liberty:</span></P>
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&nbsp;</P>
<p align="justify" style="text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman,serif"><I><span style="font-size:12pt;">Talloke na
tu yacyate na tu punardinaya diyate</span></I></FONT></p>
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<span style="font-size:12pt;"><BR>it
is not a thing to be got for the mere asking, nor is it a thing to be
made over to a weakling.</span></P>
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&nbsp;</P>
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<span style="font-size:12pt;">The lead Sri Aurobindo gave in this connection has not,
sad to say, sufficiently attracted the attention of our people.
Indeed what he suggested was exactly, (under the circumstances, the
best way to acquire the necessary fitness, organised strength,
capacity, the might and consequently the right just the sanction, in
other words, that can uphold a demand. We are always ignoring the
broad fact that we have not the wherewithal to fight the British,
even if it is found necessary to do so for our purpose. A revolution,
meaning a chaos and confusion, is not the best means to drive out the
&quot;die-hard Imperialism&quot; as we choose to call it. Nor can
cunning or expediency or legal jugglery be of any avail, nor work
that is perfunctory, desultory, scampy. The force that can compel a
change in the British has got to be of a different character: neither
emotional excitement nor anger nor spite nor a philo&shy;sophical or
moral vindication of our cause can be an adequate lever. We declare
it is a war: well then, we will have to arm ourselves as in war. That
is to say, we must command a strength that is calm, collected,
poised, organised – objectively acquired and marshalled, not simply
subjectively thought out or taken for granted. That alone can be the
imperative sanction to all our claims and demands, our wishes and
aspirations. 
</span></P>
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<FONT STYLE="font-size: 8pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">Page – 96</span></FONT></P>
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<span style="font-size:12pt;">Precisely, the present war brings to our door the
opportunity most suited to the acquisition and development of this
power and strength. The very things the Indian temperament once had
in abundance but now lacks most and has to recover&shy; –
discipline, organization, impersonality and objectivity in work, hard
and patient labour, skill of execution in minute details –
qualities by virtue of which power is not only acquired, but
maintained and fostered – are now made more easily available. These
qualities cannot be mastered and developed with such facility and
swiftness as under the pressure of the demands of a war. This does
not mean that we have got to be militarists. But the world is such
that if we wish to live and prosper we must know how to make use of
the materials and conditions that are given to us. Many good things
are im&shy;bedded among bad ones, and wisdom and commonsense do not
advise us to throw out the baby with the bath-water. That is another
matter, however.</span></P>
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&nbsp;</P>
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<span style="font-size:12pt;">If we had joined hands with the British in the war-work
on their own terms – to try to compel them to our terms is to put
the cart before the horse – we would have seen that as we proceeded
with the work, more and more of it came auto&shy;matically under our
charge, however small or slight it might have looked in the
beginning. In the end or very soon we would have found that our
possession of the field was an accom&shy;plished fact, there could be
no question of denying or refusing, the fact had to be accepted –
admitted and ratified. It is the well-known policy of the camel which
Aesop described in one of his Fables. We have to establish the
inexorable logic of events which definitively solves the riddle, cuts
the Gordian knot as it were. A theoretical, that is to say, a moral
and legal pact or understanding is but a dam of sands.</span></P>
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&nbsp;</P>
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<span style="font-size:12pt;">Power is best gained and increased in this way, </span><I><span style="font-size:12pt;">viz.,
</span></I><span style="font-size:12pt;">through work, through practical application of it, in its
painstaking execution – no matter with what insignificant fund we
start with. Let all power come into my hands, let me be legally and
verbally recognised as free and invested with plenary power, then
alone I can exercise my power, otherwise not – &shy;this is the cry
of romantic idealism, of sentimental hunger: it has all the
impatience and incompetence of visionaries – &shy;</span><I><span style="font-size:12pt;">illumines –
</span></I><span style="font-size:12pt;">It</span><I><span style="font-size:12pt;"> </span></I><span style="font-size:12pt;">is not the clear and solid wisdom of experience.</span></P>
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<FONT STYLE="font-size: 8pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">Page – 97</span></FONT></P>
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<span style="font-size:12pt;">We naturally consider the British as our enemy and in
order to combat and compel them we have been trying to bring together
all the differing elements in our midst. Close up the ranks to fight
a common enemy-that is our grand strategy. It is an effort that has
not succeeded till now and is not likely to succeed soon. We should
have looked a little farther ahead: with a longer view we would have
spotted the greater enemy, a vastly greater immediate danger. Against
that common enemy a larger and effective unification would have been
quite feasible and even easy. Indeed, if we had taken the other way
round, had first united with the British against the greater common
enemy, our union with ourselves – our own peoples and parties –
would have been automatically accomplished.</span></P>
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&nbsp;</P>
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<span style="font-size:12pt;">That is how we read the situation. When it
looked as though there was no way left at our disposal to compose the
acute and bitter differences among the multifarious Indian
collectivities and also between the Indians and the British or
foreigners, precisely at that critical hour appeared the war bringing
a unique opportunity, a call and a message, as it were. There is
certainly clash in Nature, but always there is an effort also in her
to turn that clash into concord. India had too long been the fiel</span><i><span style="font-size:12pt;">d 
par excellen</span></i><span style="font-size:12pt;">ceof
discord and it was time that a movement for real harmony should come.
Yes, we say, the war was providential to us, a God-send, offering the
chance of centuries. But blinded and perverted our human intelligence
refused to take it at its worth.</span></P>
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<FONT STYLE="font-size: 8pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">Page – 98</span></FONT></P>
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