Chachaji

Down the ages, India has produced great men—heroes of the battlefield and heroes of the spirit, yogis who trod the divine fields, sustainers of the great Indian culture. A shining star of this galaxy was Surendra Nath Jauhar, popularly known as Chachaji.

He made great dreams a mould for coming things

And cast his deeds like bronze to front the years.

These lines from Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri mirror beautifully the heroic life of Chachaji, who was a dreamer and a hero-warrior treading the high and difficult path all his life. A self-made man—from a penniless boy who came to Delhi in 1921 he became a legend in his lifetime.

Patriotism coursed through his veins. Way back in 1919, as a schoolboy in Lahore he braved lathis and whips in defying British Martial Law Regulations. And his dynamic participation in the freedom fight continued all along. During the Civil Disobedience Movement in 1930 he organised the boycott of foreign cloth and bravely read out the historic Pledge of Purna Swaraj at the Chandni Chowk Clock Tower. Arrested and tried on six different counts, he was put in the Central Jail at Multan for 15 months, most of the time in solitary confinement with fetters. After he was released under the Gandhi-Irwin Pact, he worked with Aruna Asaf Ali and others, leading an underground movement. He was imprisoned again from 1942 to 1944.

When the country became free in 1947, Jauhar did not care for the politics of power and pelf. Had he not received a higher call already?

On having the darshan of the Mother at Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry in December 1939, he had at once recognized the Divinity come down to establish the New Age, and committed himself totally to the great mission.

Chachaji poured every bit of himself into this divine servitude of transforming the remotely located waste land on the Mehrauli Road (now Sri Aurobindo Marg) into a befitting tabernacle for the Avatar of the age and a sentinel of the Spirit amidst the clatter of the bustling metropolis—the Delhi Branch of Sri Aurobindo Ashram.

Barely two months after this, the Mother blessed the school of the Delhi Branch, started on 23 April 1956, with the following profound and prophetic words:

“A new Light has appeared upon earth. Let this new

school opened today be guided by it.

Blessings.”

The seed cast that day has now blossomed into the Mother’s International School—a centre of excellence that has a distinctive ethos of its own.

And in 1957 the Mother sent the first ever Relics of the Master to be sent out, which were enshrined here on 5 December 1957 in a beautiful structure.

There was a steady expansion of the Ashram and the School through Chachaji’s relentless zeal for the divine work. New activities started, new institutions sprang up. The Delhi Ashram has not looked back ever since. The work begun by a great son of India goes on.

Laudable and fulfilling achievement for a lifetime! But how could the mighty spirit brook repose. And he soon found his new battlefield. With a shattered body beset by serious ailments, the indomitable old man, approaching the eightieth year of his life, took up the challenge of taking Sri Aurobindo’s ‘River of Light’ farther. Thanks to his tireless labour against all odds that he had to face at the daunting height of 7,400 feet, there is now a beautiful hilltop retreat for spiritual seekers and a vibrant centre for spiritually oriented camps for youth at Van Niwas, Nainital.

Surendra Nath Jauhar gave his all to the cause of the Aurobindonian thrust in education, life and yoga.

Austere to a fault, he lived the life of a true ‘Faquir’. And as he always practised what he preached, he could inspire thousands to follow his ideal.

He has left behind a glorious history and a shining example of a true Karmayogi—to inspire generations to come.