Day .30- JAWAHARLAL NEHRU - The Discovery of India (Continued)

Village Self-Government. The Shukra Nitisara

There is an old book of the tenth century which gives us some idea of Indian polity as it was conceived prior to the Turkish and Afghan invasions. This is the Nitisara, the Science of Polity, by Shukracharya. It deals with the organization of the central government as well as of town and village life; of the king's council of state and various departments of government. The village panchayat or elected council has large powers, both executive and judicial, and its members were treated with the greatest respect by the king's officers. Land was distributed by this panchayat, which also collected taxes out of the produce and paid the government's share on behalf of the village. Over a number of these village councils there was a larger panchayat or council to supervise and interfere if necessary. Some old inscriptions further tell us how the members of the village councils were elected and what their qualifications and disqualifications were. Various committees were formed, elected annually, and women could serve on them. In case of misbehavior, a member could be removed. A member could be disqualified if he failed to render accounts of public funds. An interesting rule to prevent nepotism is mentioned: near relatives of members were not to be appointed to public office. These village councils were very jealous of their liberties and it was laid down that no soldier could enter the village unless he had a royal permit. If the people complained of an official,the Nitisara says that the king 'should take the side, not of his officers, but of his subjects.' If many complained then the official was to be dismissed, 'for who does not get intoxicated by drinking of the vanity of office.' The king was to act in accordance with the opinion of the majority of the people. 'Public opinion is more powerful than the king as the rope made of many fibres is strong enough to drag a lion.' 'In making official appointments work, character and merit are to be regarded neither caste nor family,' and 'neither through colour nor through ancestors can the spirit worthy of a Brahmin be generated. 'In the larger towns there were many artisans and merchants, and craft guilds, mercantile associations, and banking corporations were formed. Each of these controlled its own domestic affairs. All this information is very fragmentary but it does appear from this and many other sources that there was a widespread system of self-government in towns and villages and the central government seldom interfered, so long as its quota of taxes was paid. Customary law was strong and the political or military power seldom interfered with rights based on custom. Originally the agrarian system was based on a co-operative or collective village. Individuals and families had certain rights as well as certain obligations, both of which were determined and protected by customary law. There was no theocratic monarchy in India. In Indian policy if the king is unjust or tyrannical, the right to rebel against him is admitted. What the Chinese philosopher, Mencius, said 2,000 years ago might apply to India: 'When a ruler treats his subjects like grass and dirt, then subjects should treat him as a bandit and an enemy.' The whole conception of monarchical power differed from that of European feudalism, where the king had authority over all persons and things in his domain. This authority he delegated to lords and barons who vowed allegiance to him. Thus a hierarchy of authority was built up. Both the land and the people connected with it belonged to the feudal lord and, through him, to the king. This was the development of the Roman conception of dominium. In India there was nothing of this kind. The king had the right to collect certain taxes from the land and this revenue-collecting power was all he could delegate to others. The peasant in India was not the lord's serf. 

There was plenty of land available and there was no advantage in dispossessing the peasant. Thus in India there was no landlord system, as known in the west, nor was the individual peasant the full owner of his patch of land. Both these concepts were introduced much later by the British with disastrous results. Foreign conquests brought war and destruction, revolts and their ruthless suppression, and new ruling classes relying chiefly on armed force. This ruling class could often ignore the numerous constitutional restraints which had always been part of the customary law of the country. Important consequences followed and the power of the self-governing village communities decreased and later various changes were introduced in the land-revenue system. Nevertheless the Afghan and Mughal rulers took special care not to interfere with old customs and conventions and no fundamental changes were introduced, and the economic and social structure of Indian life continued as before. Ghyas-ud-Din Tughlak issued definite instructions to his officials to preserve customary law and to keep the affairs of the state apart from religion, which was a personal matter of individual preference. But changing times and conflicts, as well as the increasing centralization of government, slowly but progressively lessened the respect given to customary law. The village self-governing community, however, continued. Its break-up began only under British rule.

The Theory and Practice of Caste. The Joint Family

'In India', says Havell, 'religion is hardly a dogma, but a working hypothesis of human conduct adapted to different stages of spiritual development and different conditions of life.' In the ancient days when Indo-Aryan culture first took shape, religion had to provide for the needs of men who were as far removed from each other in civilization and intellectual and spiritual development as it is possible to conceive. There were primitive forest-dwellers, fetishists, totem-worshippers and believers in every kind of superstition, and there were those who had attained the highest flights of spiritual thought. In between, there was every shade and gradation of belief and practice. While the highest forms of thought were pursued by some, these were wholly beyond the reach of many. As social life grew, certain uniformities of belief spread, but, even so, many differences, cultural and temperamental, remained. The Indo-Aryan approach was to avoid the forcible suppression of any belief or the destruction of any claim. Each group was left free to work out its ideals along the plane of its mental development and understanding. Assimilation was attempted but there was no denial or suppression. A similar and even more difficult problem had to be faced in social organization. How to combine these utterly different groups in one social system, each group co-operating with the whole and yet retaining its own freedom to live its own life and develop itself. In a sense—though the comparison is far fetched— this may be compared to the numerous minority problems of to-day which afflict so many countries and are still far from solution. The United States of America solve their minority problems, more or less, by trying to make every citizen a 100 per cent American. They make everyone conform to a certain type. Other countries, with a longer and more complicated past, are not so favorably situated. Even Canada has its strong race, religion and language-conscious French group. In Europe the barriers are higher and deeper. And yet all this applies to Europeans, or those who have spread from Europe; people who have a certain common back-ground and similarity of culture. Where non-Europeans come in, they do not fit this pattern. In the United States, negroes, though they may be 100 per cent American, are a race apart, deprived of many opportunities and privileges, which others have as a matter of course. There are innumerable worse examples elsewhere. Only Soviet Russia is said to have solved its problem of nationalities and minorities by creating what is called a multi-national state. If these difficulties and problems pursue us even to-day with all our knowledge and progress, how much harder they must have been in the ancient days when the Indo-Aryans were evolving their civilization and social structure in a land full of variety and different types of human beings. The normal way to deal with these problems then and later was to exterminate or enslave the conquered populations. This way was not followed in India, but it is clear that every precaution was taken to perpetuate the superior position of the upper groups. Having ensured that superiority, a kind of multiple-community state was built up, in which, within certain limits and subject to some general rules, freedom was given to each group to follow its avocation and live its own life in accordance with its own customs or desires. The only real restriction was that it must not interfere or come into conflict with another group. This was a flexible and expanding system, for new groups could always be formed either by newcomers or by dissident members of an old group, provided they were numerous enough to do so. Within each group there was equality and democracy and the elected leaders guided it and frequently consulted the entire group when-never any important question arose. These groups were almost always functional, each specializing in a particular trade or craft. They became thus some kind of trade unions or craft-guilds. There was a strong sense of solidarity within each, which not only protected the group but sheltered and helped an individual member who got into trouble or was in economic distress. The functions of each group or caste were related to the functions of other castes, and the idea was that if each group functioned successfully within its own framework, then society as a whole worked harmoniously. Over and above this, a strong and fairly successful attempt was made to create, a common national bond which would hold all these groups together—the sense of a common culture, common traditions, common heroes and saints, and a common land to the four corners of which people went on pilgrimage. This national bond was of course very different from present-day nationalism; it was weak politically but, socially and culturally, it was strong. Be-cause of its political lack of cohesiveness it facilitated foreign conquest; because of its social strength it made recovery easy, as well as assimilation of new elements. It had so many heads that they could not be cut off and they survived conquest and disaster. Thus caste was a group system based on services and functions. It was meant to be an all-inclusive order without any common dogma and allowing the fullest latitude to each group. Within its wide fold there was monogamy, polygamy, and celibacy; they were all tolerated, just as other customs, beliefs, and practices were tolerated. Life was to be maintained at all levels. No minority need submit to a majority, for it could always form a separate autonomous group, the only test being: is it a distinctive group large enough to function as such? Between two groups there could be any amount of variation of race, religion, colour, culture, and intellectual development.

An individual was only considered as a member of a group; he could do anything he liked so long as he did not interfere with the functioning of the group. He had no right to upset that functioning, but if he was strong enough and could gather enough supporters, it was open to him to form another group. If he could not fit in with any group, that meant that he was out of joint so far as the social activities of the world were concerned. He could then become a sanyasi who had renounced caste, every group and the world of activity, and could wander about and do what he liked. It must be remembered that while the Indian social tendency was to subordinate the individual to the claims of the group and society, religious thought and spiritual seeking have always emphasized the individual. Salvation and knowledge of the ultimate truth were open to all, to the member of every caste, high or low. This salvation or enlightenment could not be a group affair; it was highly individualistic. In the search for this salvation also there were no inflexible dogmas and all doors were supposed to lead to it. Though the group system was dominant in the organization of society, leading to caste, there has always been an individualistic tendency in India. A conflict between the two approaches is often in evidence. Partly that individualism was the result of the religious doctrine which laid emphasis on the individual. Social reformers who criticized or condemned the caste system were usually religious reformers and their main argument was that the divisions of the caste system came in the way of spiritual development and that intense individualism to which religion pointed. Buddhism was a breakaway from the group-caste ideal towards some kind of individualism as well as universalism. But this individualism became associated with a withdrawal from normal social activities. It offered no effective alternative social structure to caste, and so caste continued then and later. What were the main castes? If we leave out for a moment those who were considered outside the pale of caste, the untouchables, there were the Brahmins, the priests, teachers, intellectuals; the Kshatriyas or the rulers and warriors; the Vaishyas or merchants, traders, bankers, etc.; and the Shudras, who were the agricultural and other workers. Probably the only closely knit and exclusive caste was that of the Brahmins. The Kshatriyas were frequently adding to their numbers both from foreign incoming elements and others in the country who rose to power and authority. The Vaishyas were chiefly traders and bankers and also engaged in a number of other professions. The main occupations of the Shudras were cultivation and domestic service. There was always a continuous process of new castes being formed as new occupations developed, and for other reasons the older castes were always trying to get up in the social scale. These processes have continued to our day. Some of the lower castes suddenly take to wearing the sacred thread which is sup-posed to be reserved for the upper castes. All this really made little difference, as each caste continued to function in its own ambit and pursued its own trade or occupation. It was merely a question of prestige. Occasionally men of the lower classes, by sheer ability, attained to positions of power and authority in the state, but this was very exceptional. The organization of society being, generally speaking, non-competitive and non-acquisitive, these divisions into castes did not make as much difference as they might otherwise have done. The Brahmin at the top, proud of his intellect and learning and respected by others, seldom had much in the way of worldly possessions. The merchant, prosperous and rich, had no very high standing in society as a whole. The vast majority of the population consisted of the agriculturists. There was no landlord system, nor was there any peasant proprietorship. It is difficult to say who owned the land in law; there was nothing like the present doctrine of owner-ship. The cultivator had the right to till his land and the only real question was as to the distribution of the produce of the land. The major share went to the cultivator, the king or the state took a share (usually one-sixth), and every functional group in the village, which served the people in any way, had its share— the Brahmin priest and teacher, the merchant, the blacksmith, the carpenter, the cobbler, the potter, the builder, the barber, the scavenger, etc. Thus, in a sense, every group from the state to the scavenger was a shareholder in the produce. Who were the depressed classes and the untouchables? The 'depressed classes' is a new designation applying rather vaguely to a number of castes near the bottom of the scale. There is no hard and fast line to separate them from the others. The untouchables are more definite. In north India only a very small number, engaged in scavenging or unclean work, are considered untouchable. Fa-Hsien tells us that when he came the persons who removed human faeces were untouchable. In south India

the numbers are much larger. How they began and grew to such numbers it is difficult to say. Probably those who were engaged in occupations considered unclean were so treated; later landless agricultural labor may have been added. The idea of ceremonial purity has been extraordinarily strong among the Hindus. This has led to one good consequence and many bad ones. The good one is bodily cleanliness. A daily bath has always been a essential feature of a Hindu's life, including most of the depressed classes. It was from India that this habit spread to England and elsewhere. The average Hindu, and even the poorest peasant, takes some pride in his shining pots and pans. This sense of cleanliness is not scientific and the man who bathes twice a day will unhesitatingly drink water that is unclean and full of germs. Nor is it corporate, at any rate now. The individual will keep his own hut fairly clean but throw all the rubbish in the village street in front of his neighbor’s house. The village is usually very dirty and full of garbage heaps. It is also noticeable that cleanliness is not thought of as such but as a consequence of some religious sanction. When that religious sanction goes, there is marked deterioration in the standards of cleanliness. The evil consequence of ceremonial purity was a growth of exclusiveness, touch-menotism, and of not eating and drinking with people of other castes. This grew to fantastic lengths unknown in any other part of the world. It led also to certain classes being considered untouchable because they had the misfortune to do some kinds of essential work which were considered unclean. The practice of normally feeding with one's own caste people spread to all castes. It became a sign of social status and the lower castes stuck to it even more rigidly than some of the higher ones. This practice is breaking up now among the higher castes but it still continues among the lower castes, including the depressed classes. If inter dining was taboo, much more so was intermarriage between castes. Some mixed marriages inevitably took place but on the whole it is extraordinary how much each caste kept to itself and propagated its own kind. The continuation of racial identity through long ages is an illusion and yet the caste system in India has to some extent managed to preserve distinctive

types, especially among the higher castes. Some groups at the bottom of the scale are sometimes referred to as outside the caste groups. As a matter of fact, no group not even the untouchables, are outside the framework of the caste system. The depressed classes and the untouchables form their own castes and have their panchayats or caste councils for settling their own affairs. But many of them have been made to suffer cruelly by being excluded from the common life of the village. The autonomous village community and the caste system were thus two of the special features of the old Indian social structure. The third was the joint family where all the members were joint sharers in the common property and inheritance went by survivorship. The father or some other elder was the head but he functioned as a manager, and not as the old Roman paterfamilias. A division of property was permitted under certain circumstances and if the parties concerned so desired. The joint property was supposed to provide for the needs of all the members of the family, workers or non-workers. Inevitably this meant a guaranteed minimum for all of them, rather than high rewards for some. It was a kind of insurance for all including even the subnormal and the physically or mentally deficient. Thus while there was security for all, there was a certain leveling down of the standard of service demanded as well as of the recompense given. Emphasis was not laid on personal advantage or ambition but on that of the group, that is the family. The fact of growing up and living in a large family minimized the ego-centric attitude of the child and tended to develop an aptitude for socialization. All this is the very opposite of what happens in the highly individualistic civilization of the west and more especially of America, where personal ambition is encouraged and personal advantage is the almost universal aim, where all the plums go to the bright and pushing, and the weak, timid or second rate go to the wall. The joint family system is rapidly breaking up in India and individualistic attitudes are developing, leading not only to far-reaching changes in the economic background of life but also to new problems of behavior. All the three pillars of the Indian social structure were thus based on the group and not on the individual. The aim was social security, stability and continuance of the group, that is of society. Progress was not the aim and progress therefore had to suffer. Within each group, whether this was the village com-munity, the particular caste, or the large joint family, there was a communal life shared together, a sense of equality, and democratic methods. Even now caste panchayats function democratically. It surprised me at one time to see the eagerness of a villager, sometimes illiterate, to serve on elected committees for political or other purposes. He soon got into the way of it and was a helpful member whenever any question relating to his life came up, and was not easily subdued. But there was an unfortunate tendency for small groups to split up and quarrel among themselves. The democratic way was not only well-known but was a common method of functioning in social life, in local government, trade-guilds, religious assemblies, etc. Caste, with all its evils, kept up the democratic habit in each group. There used to be elaborate rules of procedure, election and debate. The Marquis of Zetland has referred to some of these in writing about the early Buddhist assemblies: 'And it may come as a surprise to many to learn that in the Assemblies of the Buddhists in India 2,000 or more years ago are to be found the rudiments of our own parliamentary practice of the present day. The dignity of the Assembly was preserved by the appointment of a special officer-—the embryo of "Mr. Speaker" in the House of Commons. A second officer was appointed whose duty it was to see that when necessary a quorum was secured—the prototype of the parliamentary chief whip in our own system. A member initiating business did so in the form of a motion which was then open to discussion. In some cases this was done once only, in others three times, thus anticipating the practice of parliament in requiring that a Bill be read a third time before it becomes law. If discussion disclosed a difference of opinion the matter was decided by the vote of the majority, the voting being by ballot [ Quoted by G. T. Garratt in 'The Ltgacy of India' (1937), p. xi.]

The old Indian social structure had thus some virtues, and indeed it could not have lasted so long without them. Behind it lay the philosophical ideal of Indian culture—the integration of man and the stress of goodness, beauty and truth rather than acquisitiveness. An attempt was made to prevent the joining together and concentration of honor, power, and wealth. The duties of the individual and the group were emphasized, not their rights. The Smritis (Hindu religious books) give lists of dharmas, functions and duties of various castes but none of them contains an inventory of rights. Self-sufficiency was aimed at in the group, especially in the village and, in a different sense, in the caste. It was a closed system, allowing a certain adaptability, change, and freedom within its outer framework, but inevitably growing more and more exclusive and rigid. Progressively it lost its power to expand and tap new sources of talent. Powerful vested interests prevented any radical change and kept education from spreading to other classes. The old superstitions, known to be such by many among the upper classes, were preserved and new ones were added to them. Not only the national economy but thought itself became stationary, traditional, rigid, un expansive and un progressive. The conception and practice of caste embodied the aristocratic ideal and was obviously opposed to democratic conceptions. It had its strong sense of noblesse oblige, provided people [kept to their hereditary stations and did not challenge the established order. India's success and achievements were on the whole [confined to the upper classes; those lower down in the scale had [very few chances and their opportunities were strictly limited. I These upper classes were not small limited groups but large in numbers and there was a diffusion of power, authority and influence. Hence they carried on successfully for a very long period. But the ultimate weakness and failing of the caste system and the Indian social structure were that they degraded a mass of human beings and gave them no opportunities to get out of that condition—educationally, culturally, or economically. That degradation brought deterioration, all along the line including in its scope even the upper classes. It led to the petrifaction which became a dominant feature of India's economy and life. The contrasts between this social structure and those existing elsewhere in the past were not great, but with the changes that have taken place all over the world during the past few generations they have be-come far more pronounced. In the context of society to-day, the caste system and much that goes with it are wholly incompatible, reactionary, restrictive, and barriers to progress. There can be no equality in status and opportunity within its framework, nor can there be political democracy and much less economic democracy. Between these two conceptions conflict is inherent and only one of them can survive.

Babar and Akbar: The Process of Indianization

To go back. The Afghans had settled down in India and had become Indianized. Their rulers had to face first the problem of lessening the hostility of the people and then of winning them over. So, as a deliberate policy, they toned down their early ruthless methods, became more tolerant, invited co-operation, and tried to function not as conquerors from outside but as Indians born and bred in the land. What was at first a policy gradually became an inevitable trend as the Indian environment influenced these people from the north-west and absorbed them. While the process continued at the top, more powerful currents arose spontaneously among the people, aiming at a synthesis of thought and ways of living. The beginnings of a mixed culture began to appear and foundations were laid on which Akbar was to build. Akbar was the third of the Mughal dynasty in India, yet it was in effect by him that'the empire was consolidated. His grand-father, Babar, had won the throne of Delhi in 1526, but he was a stranger to India and continued to feel so. He had come from the north, where the Timurid Renaissance was flourishing in his homelands in central Asia and the influence of the art and culture of Iran was strong. He missed the friendly-society he was used to, the delights of conversation, the amenities and refinements of | life which had spread from Baghdad and Iran. He longed for the snow and ice of the northern highlands, for the good flesh and flowers and fruits of Ferghana. Yet, with all his disappointment at what he saw, he says that Hindustan is a remarkably fine country. Babar died within four years of his coming to India, and much of his time was spent in fighting and in laying out a splendid capital at Agra, for which he obtained the services of a famous the Magnificent in Constantinople, when fine buildings were rising up in that city. Babar saw little of India and, surrounded as he was by a hostile people, missed much. Yet his account tells us of the cultural poverty that had descended on north India. Partly this was due to Timur's destruction, partly to the exodus of many learned men and artists and noted craftsmen to the south. But it was also due to the drying up of the creative genius of the Indian people. Babar says that there was no lack of skilled workers and artisans, but there was no ingenuity or skill in mechanical invention. Also, it would appear that in the amenities and luxuries of life India was considerably behind Iran. Whether this was due to some inherent want of interest in this aspect of life in the Indian mind or to later developments, I do not know. Perhaps, as compared with the Iranians, the Indians of those days were not so much attracted to these refinements and luxuries. If they had cared for them sufficiently they could have easily got them from Iran, as there was frequent intercourse between the two countries. But it is more likely that this was a later development, another sign of the cultural rigidity and decline of India. In earlier periods, as can be seen from classical literature and paintings, there was refinement enough and, for those times, a high and complicated standard of living. Even when Babar came to north India, Vijayanagar in the south had been spoken of by many European travelers as representing a very high standard of art and culture, refinement and luxury. But in north India cultural decay was very evident. Fixed beliefs and a rigid social structure prevented social effort and advance. The coming of Islam and of a considerable number of i people from outside, with different ways of living and thought, affected existing beliefs and structure. A foreign conquest, with all its evils, has one advantage: it widens the mental horizon of the people and compels them to look out of their shells. They realise that the world is a much bigger and more variegated place than they had imagined. So the Afghan conquest had affected India and many changes had taken place. Even more so the Mughals, who were far more cultured and advanced in ways of living than the Afghans, brought changes to India. In particular, they introduced the refinements for which Iran was famous, even to the extent of the highly artificial and strictly prescribed court life, which influenced the ways of living of the nobility. The Bahmani kingdom in the south had direct con-tacts with Iran via Calicut. There were many changes in India and new impulses brought freshness and life to art and architecture and other cultural patterns. And yet all this was the result of two old-world pat-terns coming into contact, both of which had lost their initial vitality and creative vigor and were set in rigid frames. Indian culture was very old and tired, the Arab-Persian culture had long passed its zenith and the old curiosity and sense of mental adventure which distinguished the Arabs were no more in evidence. Babar is an attractive person, a typical Renaissance prince, bold and adventurous, fond of art and literature and good living. His grandson, Akbar, is even more attractive and has greater qualities. Daring and reckless, an able general, and yet gentle and full of compassion, an idealist and a dreamer, but also a man of action and a leader of men who roused the  passionate loyalty of his followers. As a warrior he conquered large parts of India, but his eyes were set on another and more enduring conquest, the conquest of the minds and hearts of the people. Those compelling eyes of his were 'vibrant like the sea in sunshine,' as Portuguese Jesuits of his court have told us. In him the old dream of a united India again took shape, united not only politically in one state but organically fused into one people. Throughout his long reign of nearly fifty years from 1556 on-wards he labored to this end. Many a proud Rajput chief, who would not have submitted to any other person, he won over to his side. He married a Rajput princess, and his son and successor, Jehangir, was thus a half Mughal and half Rajput Hindu. Jehangir's son, Shah Jehan, was also the son of a Rajput mother. Thus racially this Turko-Mongol dynasty became far more Indian than Turk or Mongol. Akbar was an admirer of and felt a kinship with the Rajputs, and by his matrimonial and other policy he formed an alliance with the Rajput ruling classes which strengthened his empire greatly. This Mughal-Rajput co-operation, which continued in subsequent reigns, affected not only government and the administration and army, but also art, culture, and ways of living. The Mughal nobility became progressively Indianized and the Rajputs and others were influenced by Persian culture. Akbar won many people to his side and kept them there, but he failed to subdue the proud and indomitable spirit of Rana Pratap of Mewar in Rajputana, who preferred to lead a hunted life in the jungle rather than give even formal allegiance to one he considered a foreign conqueror. Round himself Akbar collected a brilliant group of men, devoted to him and to his ideals. Among these were the two famous brothers Fayzee and Abul Fazl, Birbal, Raja Man Singh, and Abdul Rahim Khankhana. His court became a meeting place for men of all faiths and all who had some new idea or new invention. His toleration of views and his encouragement of all kinds of beliefs and opinions went so far as to anger some of the more orthodox Moslems. He even tried to start a new synthetic faith to suit everybody. It was in his reign that the cultural amalgamation of Hindu and Moslem in north India took a long step forward. Akbar himself was certainly as popular with the Hindus as with the Moslems. The Mughal dynasty became firmly established as India's own.

The Contrast between Asia and Europe in Mechanical Advance and Creative Energy

Akbar was full of curiosity, ever seeking to find out about things, both spiritual and temporal. He was interested in mechanical contrivances and in the science of war. He prized war-elephants especially, and they formed an important part of his army. The Portuguese Jesuits of his court tell us that 'he was interested in and curious to learn about many things, and possessed an intimate knowledge not only of military and political matters, but many of the mechanical arts.' In 'his eagerness for knowledge' he 'tried to learn everything at once, like a hungry man trying to swallow his food at a single gulp'. And yet it is very odd how his curiosity stopped at a point and did not lead him to explore certain obvious avenues which lay open before him. With all his great prestige as the Great Mughal and the strength of his empire as a land power, he was powerless at sea. Vasco de Gama had reached Calicut, via the Cape, in 1498; Albuquerque had seized Malacca in 1511 and established Portuguese sea power in the Indian Ocean. Goa on the western coast of India had become a Portuguese possession. All this did not bring the Portuguese into direct conflict with Akbar. But Indian pilgrims going to Mecca by sea, and these sometimes included members of the imperial family, or of the nobility, were often held up for ransom by the Portuguese. It was obvious that however powerful Akbar might be on land, the Portuguese were masters of the sea. It is not difficult to understand that a continental power did not attach much importance to sea power, although, as a matter of fact, India's greatness and importance in the past had been partly due to her control of the sea routes. Akbar had a vast continent to conquer and had little time to  for the Portuguese, to whom he attached no importance even though they stung him occasionally. He did think of building ships once, but this was looked upon more as a pastime than a serious naval development.

Again, in the matter of artillery the Mughal armies, as well as those of other states in India at the rime, chiefly relied on foreign experts, who were usually Turks from the Ottoman dominions. The Master of the Artillery came to be known by the title of Rumi Khan—Rum being eastern Rome, that is, Constantinople. These foreign experts trained local men, but why did not Akbar or anyone else send his own men abroad for training or interest himself in improvement by encouraging research work?

Yet another very significant thing. The Jesuits presented Akbar with a printed Bible and perhaps one or two other printed books. Why did he not get curious about printing, which would have been of tremendous advantage to him in his governmental activities as well as in his vast enterprises? Again, clocks. These were very popular with the Mughal nobility, and they were brought by the Portuguese and later by the English from Europe. They were regarded as luxuries for the rich, the ordinary people being content with sundials and standard water-clocks. No attempt was made to understand how these spring clocks were made or to get them made in India. This lack of mechanical bent is remarkable, especially as there were very fine craftsmen and artisans in India.

It is not in India alone that this paralysis of creative energy and inventive faculty is visible during this period. The whole of western and central Asia suffered from it even more. I do not know about China but I imagine that some such stagnation affected her also. It must be remembered that both in India and China, during earlier periods, there was considerable progress in various departments of science. Shipbuilding and an extensive sea-trade acted as a constant spur even to mechanical improvements. It is true that no major mechanical development took place in either of these countries or in any other country at the time. The world of the fifteenth century was, from this point of view, not very different from what it had been a thousand or two thousand years earlier. The Arabs, who had developed to some extent the early beginnings of practical science and had advanced knowledge in many ways during the dark period of the middle ages in Europe, became unimportant and backward. It is said that some of the earliest clocks were made by the Arabs in the seventh century. Damascus had a famous clock and so did the Baghdad of Harun-al-Rashid's day. But with the decline of the Arabs the art of making clocks also disappeared from these countries, although it was progressing in some of the European countries where clocks were not rarities.

Long before Caxton, the Moorish Arabs of Spain used to print from wooden blocks [I do not know how this kind of printing reached the Arabs in Spain. Probably it came to them via the Mongols from China, long before it reached northern and western Europe. The Arab world from Cordoba to Cairo, Damascus and Baghdad, had frequent contacts with China even before the Mongols appeared upon the scene].  This was done by the state for duplication of official orders. Printing there does not seem to have advanced beyond the block stage and even that faded away later. The Ottoman Turks, who for long were the dominant Moslem power in Europe and western Asia, completely 'ignored printing for many centuries, although printed books were being produced in large numbers in Europe, right at their very threshold. They must have known about them, but the incentive to utilize this great invention was totally lacking. Partly also religious sentiment was opposed to it, as it was considered that it was sacrilegious to print their holy book, the Koran. The printed sheets might be put to improper use or stepped upon or thrown into the rubbish heap. It was Napoleon who first introduced the printing press into Egypt and from there it spread very gradually and slowly into the other Arab countries. While Asia had become dormant, exhausted, as it were, by its past efforts, Europe, backward in many ways, was on the threshold of vast changes. A new spirit, a new ferment, was at work sending her adventurers across the oceans and turning the minds of her thinkers in novel directions. The Renaissance had done little for the advancement of science; to some extent it turned people away from science, and the humanistic conservative education which it introduced in the universities prevented the spread of even well-known scientific ideas. It is stated that the majority of educated English people, as late as the middle of the eighteenth century, declined to believe that the earth rotated or that it revolved round the sun, in spite of Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton; and the manufacture of good telescopes. Bred up in the Greek and Latin classics, they still clung to Ptolemy's earth-centred universe. That eminent English statesman of the nineteenth century, Mr. W. E. Gladstone, in spite of his deep erudition, neither understood nor was attracted to science. Even to-day probably there are many statesmen and public men (and not in India only) who know little of science or the scientific method, though they live in a world governed by the applications of science and themselves use it for large-scale slaughter and destruction. The Renaissance had, however, released the mind of Europe from many of its old fetters and destroyed many an idol that it had cherished. Whether it was partly and indirectly due to the Renaissance or whether it was in spite of it, a new spirit of objective inquiry was making itself felt, a spirit which not only challenged old-established authority, but also abstractions and vague speculations. Francis Bacon has written that 'the roads to human power and to human knowledge lie close together, and are nearly the same, nevertheless on account of the pernicious and inveterate habit of dwelling on abstractions it is safer to begin and raise the sciences from those foundations which have relation to practice and let the active part be as a seal which prints and determines the contemplative counterpart.' And later in the seventeenth century, Sir Thomas Browne has said: 'But the mortal lest enemy unto knowledge, and that which hath done the greatest execution upon truth, hath been a peremptory adhesion to authority;-and more especially, the establishing of our belief upon the dictates of antiquity. For (as every capacity may observe) most men, of ages present, so superstitiously do look upon ages past, that the authorities of the one exceed the reasons of the other. Whose persons indeed far removed from our times, their works, which seldom with us pass uncontrolled, either by contemporaries, or immediate successors, are now become out of the distance of envies; and the further removed from present times, are conceived to approach the nearer unto truth itself. Now hereby me thinks we manifestly delude ourselves, and widely walk out of the track of truth.' Akbar's century was the sixteenth, which saw in Europe the birth of dynamics, a revolutionary advance in the life of humanity. With that discovery Europe forged ahead, slowly at first, but with an ever-increasing momentum, till in the nineteenth century it shot forward and built a new world. While Europe was taking advantage of, and exploiting the powers of nature,

Asia, static and dormant, still carried on in the old traditional way, relying on man's toil and labor. Why was this so? Asia is too big and varied a place for a single answer. Each country, especially such vast countries as China and India, must be judged separately. China was certainly then and later more cultured and her people led a more civilized life than any in Europe. India, to all outward seeming, also presented the spectacle, not only of a brilliant court, but of thriving trade, commerce, manufactures, and crafts. In many respects the countries of Europe would have seemed backward and rather crude to an Indian visitor then. And yet the dynamic quality which was becoming evident in Europe was almost wholly absent in India.

A civilization decays much more from inner failure than from an external attack. It may fail because in a sense it has worked itself out and has nothing more to offer in a changing world, or because the people who represent it deteriorate in quality and can no longer support the burden worthily. It may be that the social culture is such that it becomes a bar to advance beyond a certain point, and further advance can only take place after that bar has been removed or some essential qualitative variation in that culture has been introduced. The decay of Indian civilization is evident enough even before the Turkish and Afghan invasions. Did the impact of these invaders and their new ideas with the old India produce a new social context, thus unbinding the fetters of the intellect and releasing fresh energy?

To some extent this happened, and art and architecture, painting, and music, and the ways of life were affected. But those consequences did not go deep enough; they were more or less superficial, and the social culture remained much the same as it used to be. In some respects indeed it became more rigid.The Afghans brought no new element of progress; they represented a backward feudal and tribal order. India was not fedal in the European sense, but the Rajput clans, who were the backbone of Indian defense, were organized in some kind of a feudal way. The Mughals were also semi-feudal but with a strong monarchical centre. This monarchy triumphed over the vague feudalism of Rajputana. Akbar might have laid, the foundations of social change if his eager, inquisitive mind had turned in that direction and sought to find out what was happening in other parts of the world. But he was too busy consolidating his empire and the big problem that faced him was how to reconcile a proselytizing religion like Islam with the national religion and customs of the people, and thus to build up national unity. He tried to interpret religion in a rational spirit and for the moment he appeared to have brought about a remarkable transformation of the Indian scene. But this direct approach did not succeed, as it has seldom succeeded elsewhere. So not even Akbar made any basic difference to that social context of India, and after him the air of change and mental adventure which he had introduced subsided, and India resumed her static and unchanging life [Abul Fazl tells us that Akbar had heard of the discovery of America by Columbus. In the next reign, Jehangir's, tobacco from America reached India, via Europe. It had an immediate and amazing vogue in spite of Jehangir's efforts to suppress it. Throughout the Mughal period India had intimate contacts with central Asia. These contacts extended to Russia and there are references to diplomatic and trade missions. A Russian friend has drawn my attention to such references in Russian chronicles. In 1532 an envoy of the Emperor Babar,named Khoja Husain, arrived in Moscow to conclude a treaty of friendship. During the reign of Tsar Michael Fedorovitch (1613-1645) Indian traders settled on the Volga. In 1625 an Indian serai was built in Astrakhan by order of the military governor. Indian craftsmen and especially weavers were invited to Moscow. In 1695 Semean Melenky, a Russian trade-agent, visited Delhi and was received by Aurangzeb. In 1722 Peter the Great visited Astrakhan and granted interviews to Indian traders. In 1745 a party of Indian sadhus, described as hermits, arrived in Astrakhan. Two of these sadhus settled in Russia and became Russian subjects.