Sri Aurobindo's Sense of the West

M.S. Ramesh
The Call Beyond, 3-2005

It is difficult for us to visualize a time when things were completely different a hundred years ago, that is, when everyone believed in the greatness of the Western Civilization, its enlightenment, its science and its marvels. Even if anyone had been perceptive enough to see what exactly was lying under the veil of supreme magnificence, it would have required enormous courage on his part to say as much. Herein lies the immeasurable superiority of Sri Aurobindo over others; he was not only penetratingly perceptive but also undauntingly bold - bold in the face of a complete hostile atmosphere which hardly allowed others to see the point of his criticism of the West....

When a great majority of the people could not even vaguely sense the truth about the West- how could they, when they were dazzled by the brilliance of its achievements in the field of science and technology, by the rapid strides it was making in the economic and social fields - Sri Aurobindo clearly felt the drift of the Western Civilization, foresaw the turn it would take, and warned us about the dangers of its free competition, individualism, expansion and all other 'progressive' ideas.... His criticism of the West has a fine, delicate balance - so delicate a balance, it merits serious attention even from the Westerners.... His criticism itself speaks for his mastery of the West and for his unbiased attitude.... He does not make a wholesale condemnation of the Western Civilization, as some Western writers do against the Indian Civilization.

The point to be noticed here is that Sri Aurobindo could speak so very authoritatively on Europe and our slavish admiration of it not beacause he was a nationalist, but because he was a man who had mastered the European conditions - who had known the ins and outs of the whole European Civilization. It is for this reason that Sri Aurobindo's sense of the West is much more important to us than any other Indian. We could find in other Indians either a deep hatred for the West or a foolish love for it; we could find in some an intense patriotism, and in some others a complete denationalization; again, we could find in them either a sentimental pride in the past, or a total aversion for it. None of them had an intelligent understanding of the West - a thorough mastery of the new conditions and new knowledge imposed on India by her recent contact with it - a mastery that would lead to successful assimilation.

Here lies the extraordinary superiority of Sri Aurobindo over other Indian writers, leaders and thinkers. He is one of the very few Indians who speak and write with a sound understanding of the West, and of its impact on India, and offers us a most intelligent account of it.... It's really high time we scrutinized our ideas of the progressive West. It is high time we stripped ourselves of the crude image that we have of it, and thereby saved ourselves from the disastrous consequences that would follow our idolatory of it. No other Indian thinker or writer could help us as much as Sri Aurobindo could in this regard.