Sri Aurobindo: The mystic whose economic philosophy deserves attention

Mint

15 hours ago

Fifteen August throws up a hard-to-ignore coincidence: India and Sri Aurobindo— not just a nation and one of its foremost philosophers—but two intertwined ideas of freedom sharing a birth date.
But try dropping Sri Aurobindo's name at a startup pitch night, and you'll likely earn blank stares or a quick scramble for a Google search.
While Aurobindo's legacy is pocketed away by philosophers and the occasional political reference, his real masterstroke was an economic vision so ahead of its time it could give even the most zealous Atmanirbhar Bharat evangelists a run for their rupee.
Economic thought
That's because the man who was born on 15 August 1872 was not just a mystic in robes. Besides being a freedom fighter, philosopher, and poet, he was also a sharp economic thinker. For him, independence was hollow without what he called 'national self-sufficiency".
Long before 'import substitution" migrated from bureaucrats' memos to TV panel debates, he wrote and argued that true liberation meant building native industries, empowering small producers, and weaving social harmony from economic justice.
He challenged the colonial gospel that India was destined to supply the world merely with raw material. In an era when economic debate usually meant rubber-stamping the next budget from London, this was edgy and farsighted.
Born as Aurobindo Ackroyd Ghose in Calcutta, his name itself reflected the colonial contradictions of the time. His father, Krishna Dhun Ghose, had returned from England with a completely Western outlook and, because a British lady, Annette Ackroyd, happened to be present at the time of his birth, gave him the middle name Ackroyd.
The senior Ghose wanted his sons to enter the Indian Civil Service (ICS). To achieve this, the entire family moved to England in 1879 and at age seven, Aurobindo went to study at St. Paul's School and later at King's College, Cambridge.
Economic nationalism
A brilliant student, he passed the open competition for the Indian Civil Service in 1890. But at the end of two years of probation, he refused to present himself at the riding examination in a deliberate act of rebellion that foreshadowed his revolutionary path. Returning to India in 1893, he worked for the next 13 years in the Princely State of Baroda, where his economic nationalism would first take root.
His broader economic philosophy emerged from his involvement in the Swadeshi movement of 1905-1908, where he articulated a vision that went far beyond mere boycott of British goods. He saw swadeshi as a more sophisticated form of economic nationalism that sought to use and protect Indian capital for the benefit of Indian nationals.
Aurobindo believed that economic freedom anchored political freedom. It's the same playbook that now fuels programmes like Startup India and Make in India. But he offered a twist: National renewal couldn't become an excuse for insular thinking or nativist trade walls.
He argued for a productive, innovative industrial sector defined by knowledge, values, and the dignity of labour. For the factory worker and the artisan, he envisioned not some Dickensian sweatshop future, but a 'collective ascent" where prosperity and ethics weren't on opposite sides of the spreadsheet.
His published philosophical works, including The Life Divine and The Synthesis of Yoga, articulated a vision of human-centred progress.
He also warned about the risk of fragmented growth, an economy split between high-flying cities and disempowered villages, between glitzy initial public offerings and invisible farmers.
Indeed, where Mahatma Gandhi advocated village self-sufficiency and Jawaharlal Nehru pushed industrial modernization, Aurobindo offered a third path: Development that elevated human potential while building economic strength.
Economic relevance
His philosophy also emphasized the harmonious development of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual elements to help people realize their full potential. In today's terminology, he was advocating for conscious capitalism—economic development that leads to human development rather than mere accumulation of wealth.
Sadly, India largely ignored Aurobindo's synthesis, preferring to relegate it to the unthreatening realm of the esoteric, where it remains safely out of corporate sight. In our wisdom, instead of integral development, we continue to oscillate between the extremes of socialist stagnation and unbridled capitalism.
While the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Puducherry remains the epicentre of his legacy, attracting spiritual seekers from India and the rest of the world, his economic vision, with its emphasis on ethics, equity, and resilience, deserves a repository of its own.
As India finds itself at another inflexion point—feisty on the world stage, ambitious at home, and stubbornly unequal at the margins—it's time to dust off Aurobindo's playbook, not just for spiritual comfort, but as a smart strategy.