Sri Aurobindo and Viksit Bharat

Sri Aurobindo and Viksit Bharat

“Another dream was for the resurgence and liberation of the peoples of Asia and her return to her great role in the progress of human civilisation. Asia has arisen; large parts are now quite free or are at this moment being liberated: its other still subject or partly subject parts are moving through whatever struggles towards freedom. Only a little has to be done and that will be done today or tomorrow. There India has her part to play and has begun to play it with an energy and ability which already indicate the measure of her possibilities and the place she can take in the council of the nations.”
— Sri Aurobindo, The Fourth Dream

Sri Aurobindo’s Five Dream was not a utopian wish. It was a diagnosis of history and a direction for Bharat’s bright future. He foresaw that humanity, fractured by power, race, and ideology, would eventually be compelled to move toward unity—not sentimental unity, but a unity grounded in consciousness. India, in this vision, was not merely another nation-state aspiring for prosperity; it was a civilisational instrument meant to lead this transition.

Today, as India speaks of Viksit Bharat, the question is unavoidable: what does development truly mean? Is it only the arithmetic of GDP and HDI, or is it the qualitative evolution of a civilisation rediscovering its inner law?

This question formed the undercurrent of a recent public dialogue I had with Dr. Suvrokamal Dutta, a prominent political commentator and conservative thinker, who spoke passionately about India’s resurgence under Hon’ PM Sh.Narendra Modi, the civilisational significance of Vande Mataram, and the awakening of Shakti within the Indian state. His reflections, rooted in contemporary geopolitics and national confidence, provide a valuable counterpoint—and complement—to Sri Aurobindo’s deeper spiritual diagnosis of nationhood.

What Does “Viksit” Mean?

In modern policy language, a developed nation is defined through indicators: GDP size, per capita income, industrial capacity, infrastructure, Human Development Index, life expectancy, literacy, technological capability. By these measures, India’s progress over the last eight decades is undeniable. Within less than a century of independence, India stands as the world’s fifth-largest economy, poised to become the third-largest. Poverty has reduced dramatically. Digital public infrastructure has become a global reference point. India is politically stable, electorally vibrant, and culturally assertive.

The present is glorious—not in triumphalist terms, but in historical context. A civilisation once colonised, fractured, and impoverished has reassembled its will. Bharat is on her way to recovery. Yet Sri Aurobindo would perhaps insist that this is only the outer meaning of development. For him, a nation develops not merely when it grows richer, but when it grows wider, higher, and truer to its soul. Viksit, in this sense, does not mean “newly created,” but reawakened—returning to its svabhava (essential nature) and svadharma (right action in the world).

Thus, for Bharat, development is not a straight line forward, but a series of conscious returns:

  • Reignite civilisational memory
  • Reinvigorate cultural confidence
  • Recalibrate institutions to serve human growth
  • Reintegrate material power with spiritual wisdom
  • Reimagine progress beyond growth in consumption

These “re’s” matter because India was not born in 1947. Its civilisational power has flowed continuously—sometimes obscured, sometimes suppressed, but never extinguished.

Sri Aurobindo: Nation as Conscious Force

Sri Aurobindo did not see the nation as a mechanical state or administrative boundary. He saw it as Shakti—a living power formed by collective psychology, culture, aspiration, and destiny. In his writings on nationalism, he made a crucial distinction: Europe built nations through contract, power, and organisation. India evolved civilisation through dharma, culture, and inner discipline. When India imitates Europe blindly, it betrays itself. When it retreats into nostalgia, it stagnates. Its task is synthesis. This is why Sri Aurobindo rejected both soulless modernity and regressive traditionalism. He warned that power without consciousness leads to tyranny, while spirituality without strength leads to irrelevance.

In this light, Viksit Bharat becomes meaningful only when; power is restrained by inner law, prosperity serves human flowering, technology obeys ethical intelligence, and, governance reflects collective aspiration.

The Contemporary Moment

In our discussion, Dr. Suvrokamal Dutta spoke forcefully about India’s present leadership and national resurgence. He emphasised how Prime Minister Modi has reasserted civilisational confidence—politically, culturally, and strategically. From infrastructure to foreign policy, from cultural symbolism to state capacity, India is no longer apologetic. The invocation of Vande Mataram, the celebration of the Motherland, and the reclaiming of national pride are not mere theatrics; they are signals of psychological decolonisation. A civilisation that does not respect itself cannot lead.

Dr. Dutta rightly stressed that a strong state is essential. Without sovereignty, security, and institutional power, lofty ideals collapse. Sri Aurobindo himself supported armed resistance during the freedom struggle when it was historically necessary. He did not romanticise weakness. Where Sri Aurobindo extends the argument further is in insisting that state power must evolve alongside consciousness. The Shakti of the state must be guided by wisdom, not ego. Otherwise, strength hardens into domination.

The Five Pursuits of Viksit Bharat

Prime Minister Modi’s articulation of focus groups—Yuva, Garib, Mahilayen, Kisan, and Sena—offers a grounded framework for inclusive development.

  • Yuva (Youth): the carriers of future consciousness
  • Garib (Poor): the moral test of development
  • Mahilayen (Women): the awakened Shakti of society
  • Kisan (Farmers): custodians of land and sustenance
  • Sena (Armed Forces): guardians of sovereignty

From a Sri Aurobindonian lens, these are not just policy categories; they represent forces of transformation. Youth without values becomes reckless. Power without compassion becomes brutal. Prosperity without equity becomes hollow. True development integrates all five into a conscious whole.

Beyond Imitation: The Indic Way

A critical insight Sri Aurobindo offers is this: India’s future will not—and must not—be a copy of the United States or Europe. Or, for that matter China now. America represents an individualistic-material civilisation. China represents a centralised-civilisational state. India’s genius lies elsewhere—in plural unity, spiritual freedom, and cultural synthesis.

The Indic way—Bharatiyata—does not separate life into silos. The spiritual is not opposed to the material. Politics is not divorced from ethics. Economics is not isolated from ecology. Education is not limited to skill, but extends to character. This integrated worldview is India’s gift to the world, especially to the Global South, which is searching for alternatives to extractive modernity.

Auroville: A Fifth Dream in Practice

Sri Aurobindo spoke of five dreams. The final dream points to an evolutionary advance: a movement toward a higher and wider consciousness, one that could begin to resolve the enduring problems that have troubled humanity from the moment it first aspired to individual perfection and an ideal society. At present, this remains a personal hope—an idea, an ideal—yet one that has already begun to take root in receptive and forward-looking minds, both in India and in the West. The obstacles before such an evolution are greater than in any other human undertaking. But difficulty, by its nature, exists to be confronted and overcome. If the Supreme Will is present, these obstacles will not remain insurmountable.

Since this evolution must arise through an inner growth of spirit and consciousness, its initiative can emerge from India. Though its scope must be universal, the central impulse of this movement may well originate here. This is the deeper meaning Sri Aurobindo placed in the moment of India’s liberation. Whether—and to what extent—this hope will be realised depends upon the character and direction taken by a newly free India.

It was The Mother who gave this fifth dream a physical form through Auroville.

Auroville was never meant to be a spiritual enclave or alternative lifestyle village. It was envisioned as a laboratory of consciousness, where social, economic, educational, ecological, and cultural systems could be experimented with beyond the limits of nation, religion, and ideology. If Auroville succeeds—even partially—it offers Bharat something invaluable:

  • A lived model of post-national cooperation
  • A proof that prosperity and inner growth can coexist
  • A demonstration that spirituality need not be religious
  • A template for conscious governance and collective life

Thus, helping Auroville manifest is a strategic civilisational investment. Bharat gains insights. The Global South gains hope. Humanity gains a reference point.

Sri Aurobindo was categorical: India’s destiny is spiritual, but not sectarian. Spirituality, in the Vedic sense, is the science of consciousness—discovering one’s svabhava and acting in accordance with one’s svadharma. Applied to society, this means, economics aligned with well-being, politics aligned with truth, education aligned with integral growth, technology aligned with ethics, etc. A Viksit Bharat that ignores this dimension may grow powerful, but it will not grow wise, similar to the other developed nations.

Development as Destiny

Viksit Bharat is not a break from India’s past; it is a return to its deeper trajectory. The past was glorious, not because it was perfect, but because it was rooted. The present is promising, not because it is complete, but because it is confident. The future will be meaningful only if it is conscious. Sri Aurobindo does not reject development. He redeems it. He reminds us that India’s role is not to dominate the world, but to illuminate it—to show that power can serve unity, that prosperity can serve purpose, and that progress can be aligned with the soul.

In the light of Sri Aurobindo, Viksit Bharat is not an destination. It is a civilisational journey.

Few Paths vs Whole Terrain

AWARE-POST-IMAGES-Auroville-Must-Choose-Synthesis-over-Sectarianism.

In the quest to manifest a city of the future, we cannot afford the shortcuts of ideology or the comfort of exclusion. A synthetic, integral approach is not an option—it is the very DNA of Auroville.

There’s a beautiful phrase the Mother once used:
“No politics, no religion—only the Divine.”
She was pointing not to a negation, but to a higher synthesis.
And it is this that we are still struggling to understand.

Today, as I walk through Auroville, I sense the silent battlefields—not always visible, but deeply felt. Different groups, each sincere in their own way, move with passion toward their vision of what Auroville must become. One speaks the language of roads, economy, infrastructure. Another speaks of energy, spirit, subtle vibrations. A third cautions us toward ecology, land protection, and village integration. A fourth invokes freedom, experimentation, or tradition. All of them have a point. But the moment they become the point, they miss the point.

We have seen it elsewhere: religion splitting into sects, movements hardening into dogmas, revolutions devouring their own. It happens when a partial truth claims totality. And Auroville—if we are not vigilant—can fall into the same pattern.

Let me say it clearly: no single ideology will save Auroville.

Not green ideology.
Not development ideology.
Not anti-development ideology.
Not cultural revivalism.
Not spiritual puritanism.
Not governance legalism.

Each of these is a fragment. And truth is not in the fragment—it is in the synthesis.

We live in a world addicted to polarity. Choose a side. Pick a team. Be “for” or “against.” But Auroville was never meant to follow that logic. It wasn’t meant to become an ashram, nor a startup hub, nor a museum of cultural purity, nor a real estate playground, nor a refugee camp for ideological outcasts. It was meant to be a living experiment—where all paths converge, transform, and transcend themselves in the light of a deeper consciousness.

That consciousness is not partisan. It doesn’t prefer left or right, East or West, tradition or modernity. It integrates. It transmutes. It evolves.

But it requires us to grow up.

And growing up, spiritually and collectively, is not about doubling down on one’s favourite paradigm. It is about holding multiple truths together—until they burn through their limitations and reveal something more profound.

That’s why I worry when I see any single tendency trying to dominate the discourse. When architecture becomes about personal taste. When economy becomes about control. When culture becomes about nostalgia. When spirituality becomes about conformity. When planning becomes about passive war. When communication becomes about propaganda.

These are not roads to the future. These are loops of the past.

So what does a synthetic approach look like?

It starts with listening. Politely, and profoundly. To people we don’t like. To ideas that make us uncomfortable. To perspectives that challenge our sense of identity. It means stepping beyond our personal comfort zones—and being willing to be wrong, or at least incomplete.

It means understanding that the man digging the trench and the woman teaching free progress are not opposites. They are both building the city—one through matter, one through mind. Both are sacred tasks. Both are incomplete without the other.

It means seeing that development does not need to mean destruction—and that preservation does not need to mean paralysis. That the land can be both nurtured and traversed. That the City can be both planned and evolved. That culture can be both rooted and open.

It means seeing that inner work is not an escape from the world—but a preparation to engage it more clearly. And that outer work is not a distraction from yoga—but the very field in which yoga is tested. It means remembering that governance and organisation are not about domination or submission—but about creating conditions where truth can emerge from complexity.

This is not easy. Synthesis is never easy. It asks more of us than opposition ever could. It asks for nuance, for maturity, for patience, for faith—not blind faith, but faith in the process of becoming.

It asks that we stop using The Mother or Sri Aurobindo to justify our biases—and instead try to live their teachings in action, in relationships, in design, in economics, in daily choices.

It asks that we be courageous—not just in STANDING for what we believe, but in holding space for what we do not yet understand.

It asks that we stop seeing Auroville as a battleground for ideologies—and start seeing it as a basis for transformation.

Because here’s the truth: No one is coming to save us.
No policy. No plan. No person.
We will have to save Auroville together—or not at all.

There are two temptations we must resist now.

  • The first is to simplify—to reduce Auroville into one idea, one vision, one “right way.” That will kill the experiment.
  • The second is to scatter—to retreat into silos, communities, cliques, complaints, disengagement. That will fragment the experiment.

What we need instead is a third path: the path of conscious integration.

Not as a middle path, but as a higher path.
Not compromise, but complexity held in clarity.
Not convenience, but conviction in evolution.

We don’t need to agree on everything. But we do need to agree on this: that Auroville is not a place for partial solutions. That we are here to hold contradictions, live questions, forge new ways. Not mimic the world, but reimagine it.

To do that, we must work inwardly and outwardly, with equal force and tenderness.
We must build the city and the soul—side by side.

In the end, this is the wager of Auroville:
Can human beings—different as we are—live together not by sameness, but by synthesis?
Can we build something not in our image, but in the image of a future consciousness?

It will take everything we have.
And it will give us more than we can imagine.

But only if we refuse the easy paths.
Only if we walk the whole terrain.

— Lakshay, for AWARE Auroville

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