Aravinda Ackroyd Ghose

Sri Aurobindo

Aurobindo Ghose

Pondicherry, India

1879–93

Although best known for his behind-the-scenes leadership of the Swadeshi protests against the partition of Bengal (1905–8), the anti-colonialist and Hindu revivalist Aravinda Ackroyd Ghose was a pioneering Indian poet in English in the 1890s. After his return to India, he published a collection of lyric poems, Songs to Myrtilla (1895), written while in England, and narrative poems based on Indian legends, Urvasie (1896) and Love and Death (1899). At the same time he embarked on a sustained critique of the reformist Indian National Congress (INC), carried out in journal articles.

The son of a medical doctor, Ghose was brought to England in 1879 and left by his parents, with his two brothers, to study. He was educated privately at St Paul’s School, and then at King’s College, Cambridge as a classics scholar. His brother was Manmohan Ghose, an 1890s poet associated with the Rhymers' Club (known for its aestheticism) and friend to English critic Laurence Binyon. Ghose passed the Indian Civil Service examination with Distinction but was unable to take up a position as he failed to appear for the riding test. He returned to India in 1892 whereupon he took up a post at Baroda College.

Back in India, Ghose became involved in Indian politics with his brothers. From around 1902 he had contacts with 'revolutionaries' in Bengal and was involved in a number of bomb plots against the British. Ghose was also a friend to Sister Nivedita (Margaret Noble), though this contact was forged in India in the early 1900s. He became editor of Bande Mataram in 1906. In 1910 Ghose left Calcutta for Pondicherry, to flee prosecution, and became devoted to the practice of yoga. He became a spiritual leader and built up a popular ashram in Pondicherry, retiring from public view around 1926.