Day .35- JAWAHARLAL NEHRU - The Discovery of India (Continued)

The Techniques of British Rule: Balance and Counterpoise

The Revolt of 1857-58 was essentially a feudal rising, though there were some nationalistic elements in it. Yet, at the same time, it was due to the abstention or active help of the princes and other feudal chiefs that the British succeeded in crushing it. Those who had joined the Revolt were as a rule the disinherited and those deprived of their power and privileges by the British authority, or those who feared that some such fate was in store for them. British policy after some hesitation had decided in favor of a gradual elimination of the princes and the establishment of direct British rule. The Revolt brought about a change in this policy in favor not only of the princes but of the talukdars or big landlords. It was felt that it was easier to control the masses through these feudal or semi-feudal chiefs. These talukdars of Oudh had been the tax-farmers of the Mughals but, owing to the weakness of the central authority, they had begun to function as feudal landlords. Nearly all of them joined the Revolt, though some took care to keep a way of escape open. In spite of their rebellion the British authority offered to reinstate them (with a few exceptions) and confirm them in their estates on conditions of 'loyalty and good service.' Thus these talukdars, who take pride in calling themselves the 'Barons of Oudh,' became one of the pillars of British rule. 

Though the Revolt had directly affected only certain parts of the country, it had shaken up the whole of India and, particularly, the British administration. The Government set about reorganizing their entire system; the British Crown, that is the Parliament, took over the country from the East India Company; the Indian army, which had begun the Revolt by its mutiny, was organized afresh. The techniques of British rule, which had already been well-established, were now clarified and confirmed and deliberately acted upon. Essentially these were: the creation and protection of vested interests bound up with British rule; a policy of balancing and counterpoise of different elements, and the encouragement of fissiparous tendencies and division amongst them. The princes and the big landlords were the basic vested interests thus created and encouraged; but now a new class, even more tied up with British rule, grew in importance. This consisted of the Indian members of the services, usually in subordinate positions. Previously the employment of Indians had been avoided except when this could not be helped, and Munro had pleaded for such employment. Experience had now demonstrated that Indians employed were so dependent on the British administration and rule that they could be relied upon and treated as agents of that rule. In the pre-mutiny days most of the Indian members of the subordinate services had been Bengalis. These had spread out over the upper provinces wherever the British administration needed clerks and the like in its civil or military establishments. Regular colonies of Bengalis had thus grown up at the administrative or mlitary centres in the United Provinces, Delhi, and even in the Punjab. These Bengalis accompanied the British armies and proved faithful employees to them. They became associated in the minds of the rebels with The British power and were greatly disliked by them and given uncomplimentary titles. Thus began the process of the Indianization of the administrative machine in its subordinate ranks, all real power and initiative being, however, concentrated in the hands of the English personnel. As English education spread, the Bengalis had no longer a virtual monopoly of service and other Indians came in, both on the judicial and executive sides of the administration.This Indianization became the most effective method of strengthening British rule. It created a civil army and garrison everywhere, which was more important even than the military army of occupation. There were some members of this civil army  who were able and patriotic and nationalistically inclined, but like the soldier, who also may be patriotic in his individual capacity, they were bound up by the army code and discipline, and the price of disobedience, desertion, and revolt was heavy. Not only was this civil army created but the hope and prospect of employment in it affected and demoralized a vast and growing number of others. There was a measure of prestige and security in it and a pension at the end of the term of service, and if a sufficient subservience was shown to one's superior officers, other failings did not count. These civil employees were the intermediaries between the British authorities and the people, and if they had to be obsequious to their superiors they could be arrogant to and exact obedience from their own inferiors and the people at large. The lack of other avenues of employment , other ways of making a living, added, additional importance to government service. A few could become lawyers or doctors, but even so, success was by no means assured. Industry hardly existed. Trade was largely in the hands of certain hereditary classes who had a peculiar aptitude for it and who helped each other. The new education did not fit anyone for trade or industry; its chief aim was government service. Education was so limited as to offer few openings for a professional career; other social services were almost non-existent. So government service remained and, as the colleges poured out their graduates; even the growing government services could not absorb them all, and a fierce competition arose. The unemployed graduates and others formed a pool from which government could always draw; they were a potential threat to the security of even the employed. Thus the British Government in India became, not only the biggest employer, but, for all practical purposes, the sole big employer (including railways), and a vast bureaucratic machine was built up, strictly managed and controlled at the top.This enormous patronage was exercised to strengthen the British hold on the country, to crush discordant and disagreeable elements, and to promote rivalry and discord amongst various groups anxiously looking forward to employment in government service. It led to demoralization and conflict, and the government could play one group 

against the other. The policy of balance and counterpoise was deliberately furthered in the Indian army. Various groups were so arranged as to prevent any sentiment of national unity growing up amongst them, and tribal and communal loyalties and slogans were encouraged. Every effort was made  to isolate the army from the people and even ordinary newspapers were not allowed to reach the Indian  troops. All the key positions were kept in the hands of Englishmen and no Indian could hold the  King's commission. A raw English subaltern was senior to the oldest and most experienced Indian non-commissioned officer or those holding the so-called Viceroy's commissions. No  Indian could be employed at army headquarters except as a petty clerk in the accounts department. For additional protection the more effective weapons of warfare were not given to the Indian forces; they were reserved for the British troops in India. These British troops were always kept with the Indian regiments in all the vital centres of India to serve as 'Internal Security Troops' for suppression of disorder and to overawe the people. While this internal army, with a pre dominance of British personnel, served as an army of occupation for the country, the greater portion of the Indian troops were part of the field army organized for service abroad. The Indian troops were recruited from special classes only, chiefly in northern India, which were called martial classes.

Again we notice in India that inherent contradiction in British rule. Having brought about the political unification of the country and thus let loose new dynamic forces which thought not only in terms of that unity, but aimed at the freedom of India, the British Government tried to disrupt that very unity it had helped to create. That disruption was not thought of in political terms then as a splitting up of India; it was aimed at the weakening of nationalist elements so that British rule might continue over the whole country. But it was nonetheless an attempt at disruption, by giving greater importance to the Indian states than they had ever had before, by encouraging reactionary elements and looking to them for support, by promoting divisions and encouraging one group against another, by encouraging fissiparous tendencies due to religion or province, and by organizing quisling classes which were afraid of a change which might engulf them. All this was a natural understandable policy for a foreign imperialist power to pursue, and it is a little naive to be surprised at it, harmful from the Indian nationalist point of view though it was. But the fact that it was so must be remembered if we are to understand subsequent developments. Out of this policy arose those 'important elements in India's national life' of which we are reminded so often to-day; which were created and encouraged to disagree and disrupt, and are now called upon to agree among themselves. Because of this natural alliance of the British power with the reactionaries in India, it became the guardian and upholder of many an evil custom and practice which it otherwise condemned. India was custom-ridden when the British came, and the tyranny of old custom is often a terrible thing. Yet customs change and are forced to adapt themselves to some extent to a changing environment. Hindu law was largely custom, and as custom changed the law also was applied in a different way. Indeed, there was no provision of Hindu law which could not be changed by custom. The British replaced this elastic customary law by judicial decisions based on the old texts, and these decisions became precedents which had to be rigidly followed. That was, in theory, an advantage, as it produced greater uniformity and certainty. But, in the manner it was done, it resulted in the perpetuation of the ancient law unmodified by subsequent customs. Thus the old law which, in some particulars and in various places, had been changed by custom and was thus out of date, was petrified, and every tendency to change it in the well known customary way was suppressed. It was still open to a group to prove a custom overriding the law, but this was extraordinarily difficult in the law courts. Change could only come by positive legislation, but the British Government, which was the legislating authority, had no wish to antagonize the conservative elements on whose support it counted. When later some legislative powers were given to partially elected assemblies, every attempt to promote social reform legislation was frowned upon by the authorities and sternly discouraged.

Growth of Industry: Provincial Differences

Slowly India recovered from the after-effects of the revolt of 1857-58. Despite British policy, powerful forces were at work changing India, and a new social consciousness was arising. The political unity of India, contact with the west, technological advances, and even the misfortune of a common subjection, led to new currents of thought, the slow development of industry, and the rise of a new movement for national freedom. The awakening of India was two-fold: she looked to the west and, at the same time, she looked at herself and her own past.

The coming of the railway to India brought the industrial age on its positive side; so far only the negative aspect, in the shape of manufactured goods from Britain, had been in evidence. In 1860 the duty on imported machinery, imposed so as to prevent the industrialization of India, was removed, and large-scale industry began to develop, chiefly with British capital. First came the jute industry of Bengal, with its nerve centre at Dundee in Scotland; much later, cotton mills grew up in Ahmedabad and Bombay, largely with Indian capital and under Indian ownership; then came mining. Obstruction from the British Government in India continued, and an excise duty was put on Indian cotton goods to prevent them from competing with Lancashire textiles,even in India. Nothing, perhaps, reveals the police-state policy of the Government of India more than the fact that they had no department of agriculture and no department of commerce and industry till the twentieth century. It was, I believe, chiefly due to the donation of an American visitor, given for agricultural improvement in India, that a department of agriculture was started in the central government. (Even now this department is a very small affair.) A department for commerce and industry followed soon after, in 1905. Even then these departments functioned in a very small way. The growth of industry was artificially restricted and India's natural economic development was arrested. Though the masses of India were desperately poor and growing poorer, a tiny fringe at the top was prospering under the new conditions and accumulating capital. It was this fringe that demanded political reform as well as opportunities for investment.

On the political side, the Indian National Congress was started in 1885. Commerce and industry grew slowly, and it is interesting to note that the classes who took to them were predominantly those whose hereditary occupations for hundreds of years had been trade and commerce. Ahmedabad, the new centre of the textile industry, had been a famous manufacturing and trade centre during the Mughal period and even earlier, exporting its products to foreign countries. The big merchants of Ahmedabad had their own ships for this seaborne trade to Africa and the Persian Gulf. Broach, the seaport near by, was well known in Graeco-Roman times. The people of Gujarat, Kathiawar, and Cutch were traders, manufacturers, merchants, and seafaring folk from ancient times.

Many changes took place in India, but they carried on with their old business, adapting them to new conditions. They are now among the most prominent leaders in industry and commerce. Religion or a change of religion made no difference. The Parsis, who originally settled in Gujarat thirteen hundred years ago, may be considered as Gujaratis for this purpose. (Their language has long been Gujarati.) Among the Moslems the most prominent sects in business and industry are the Khojas, Memons, and Bohras. All of these are converts from Hinduism, and all come from Gujarat, Kathiawar, or Kutch. All these Gujaratis not only dominate industry and business in India, but have spread out to Burma, Ceylon, East Africa, South Africa, and other foreign countries. The Marwaris from Rajputana used to control internal trade and finance, and were to be found at all the nerve centres of India. They were the big financiers as well as the small village' bankers; a note from a well-known Marwari financial house would be honored anywhere in India, and even abroad. The Marwaris still represent big finance in India but have added industry to it now. The Sindhis in the north-west have also an old commercial tradition, and with their headquarters at Shikarpur or Hyderabad they used to spread out over central and western Asia and elsewhere. To-day (that is before the war) there is hardly a port anywhere in the world where one or more Sindhi shops cannot be found. Some of the Punjabis also have been traditionally in business.

The Chettys of Madras have also been leaders in business, and banking especially, from ancient times. The word 'Chetty' is derived from the Sanskrit 'Shreshthi,' the leader of a merchant guild. The common appellation 'Seth' is also derived from 'Shreshthi.' The Madras Chettys have not only played an important part in south India, but they spread out all over Burma, even in the remoter villages.Within each province also trade and commerce were largely in the hands of the old vaishya class, who had been engaged in business for untold generations. They were the retail and wholesale dealers and moneylenders. In each village there was a bania's shop, which dealt in the necessaries of village life and advanced loans, on very profitable terms, to the villagers. The rural credit system was almost entirely in the hands of these banias. They spread even to the tribal and independent territories of the north-west and performed important functions there. As poverty grew agricultural indebtedness also grew rapidly, and the money lending establishments held mortgages on the land and eventually acquired much of it. Thus the moneylender became the landlord also. These demarcations of commercial, trading, and banking classes from others became less clearly defined as newcomers crept into various business; but they continued and are still marked. Whether they are due to the caste system, or the hold of tradition, or inherited capacity, or all of these together, it is difficult to specify. undoubtedly among Brahmins and Kshatriyas business was looked down upon, and even the accumulation of money, though agreeable enough, was not 

a sufficient recompense. 

The possession of land was a symbol of social position, as in feudal times, and scholarship and learning were respected, even apart from possession. Under British rule government service gave prestige, security, and status, and later, when Indians were allowed to enter the Indian Civil Service, this service, called the 'heaven born service' —heaven being some pale shadow of Whitehall— became the Elysium of the English-educated classes. The professional classes, especially lawyers, some of whom earned large incomes in the new law courts also had prestige and high status and attracted young men. Inevitably these lawyers took the lead in political and social reform movements. 

The Bengalis were the first to take to the law, and some of them flourished exceedingly and cast a glamour over their profession. They were also the political leaders. They did not fit into the growing industry, either because of lack of aptitude or other reasons. The result has been that when industry began to play an important part in the country's life and to influence politics, Bengal lost its pre-eminence in the political field. The old current, when Bengalis poured out of their province as Government servants and in other capacities, was reversed and people from other provinces poured into Bengal, especially in Calcutta, and permeated the commercial and industrial life there. Calcutta had been and continues to be the chief centre of British capital and industry, and the English and the Scotch dominate business there; but they are being caught up by Marwaris and Gujaratis. Even petty trades in Calcutta are often in non-Bengali hands. All the thousands of taxi-drivers in Calcutta, almost without an exception, are Sikhs from the Punjab Bombay became the centre and headquarters of Indian-owned industry, commerce, banking, insurance, etc. The Parsis, the Gujaratis, and Marwaris, were the leaders in all these activities,and it is significant to note that the Maharashtrians or Marathas have played very little part in them. Bombay is a huge cosmopolitan city now but its population consists mainly of Marathas and Gujaratis. The Marathas have distinguished themselves in the professions and in scholarship; they make, as one would expect, good soldiers; and large numbers of them are employed as workers in the textile mills. They are hardy and wiry and, as a province, poor; they are proud of the Shivaji tradition and of the achievements of their forefathers. The Gujaratis are soft in body, gentler, richer, and perfectly at home in trade and commerce. Perhaps these differences are largely due to geography, for the Maratha country is bare and hard and mountainous while Gujarat is rich and fertile.It is interesting to observe these and other differences in various parts of India which continue to persist, though they tend to grow less. Madras, highly intellectual, has produced and still produces distinguished philosophers, mathematicians, and scientists.

Bombay is now almost entirely devoted to business with all its advantages and disadvantages. Bengal, rather backward in industry and business, has produced some fine scientists, and has especially distinguished itself in art and literature. 

The Punjab has produced no outstanding personalities but is a go-ahead province advancing in many fields; its people are hard-headed, make good mechanics, and are successful in small trades and petty industries. The United Provinces (including Delhi) are a curious amalgam, and in some ways an epitome of India. They are the seat of the old Hindu culture as well as of the Persian culture that came in Afghan and Mughal times, and hence the mixture of the two is most in evidence there, intermingled with the culture of the west. There is less of provincialism there than in any other part of India. For long they have considered themselves, and have been looked upon by others, as the heart of India. Indeed, in popular parlance, they are often referred to as Hindustan. These differences, it must be noted, are geographical and not religious. A Bengali Moslem is far nearer to a Bengali Hindu than he is to a Punjabi Moslem; so also with others. If a number of Hindu and Moslem Bengalis happen to meet anywhere,in India or elsewhere, they will immediately congregate together and feel at home with each other. Punjabis, whether Moslem or Hindu or Sikh, will do likewise. The Moslems of the Bombay presidency (Khojas, Memons, and Bohras) have many Hindu customs; the Khojas (they are the followers of the Aga Khan) and the Bohras are not looked upon as orthodox by the Moslems of the north. Moslems, as a whole, especially in Bengal and the north, not only kept away from English education for a long time, but also took little part in the growth of industry. Partly this was due to feudal modes of thought, partly (as in Roman Catholicism) to Islam's prohibition against usury and interest on money. But, curiously enough, among the notorious moneylenders are a particular tribe of Pathans, who come from near the frontier. Moslems were thus, in the second half of the nineteenth century,backward in English education and therefore in contacts with western thought, as also in government service and in industry. The growth of industry in India, slow and arrested as it was, gave the impression of progress and attracted attention. And yet it made practically no difference to the problem of the poverty of the masses and the overburden on the land. A few hundred thousand workers were transferred to industry out of the scores of millions of the unemployed and partially employed. This change-over was so extremely small that it did not affect the increasing ruralization of the country. Widespread unemployment and the pressure on land led to emigration of workers on a substantial scale to foreign countries, often under humiliating conditions. They went to South Africa, Fiji, Trinidad, Jamaica,Guiana, Mauritius, Ceylon, Burma, and Malaya. The small groups or individuals who found opportunities for growth and betterment under foreign rule were divorced from the masses, whose condition continued to worsen. Some capital accumulated in the hands of these groups and conditions were gradually created for further growth. But the basic problems of poverty and unemployment remained untouched.

Reform and Other Movements among Hindus and Moslems

The real impact of the west came to India in the nineteenth century through technical changes and their dynamic consequences. In the realm of ideas also there was shock and change, a widening of the horizon which had so long been confined within a narrow shell. The first reaction, limited to the small English educated class, was one of admiration and acceptance of almost everything western. Repelled by some of the social customs and practices of Hinduism, many Hindus were attracted towards Christianity, and some notable conversions took place in Bengal. An attempt was therefore made by Raja Ram Mohan Roy to adapt Hinduism to this new environment and he started the Brahmo Samaj on a more or less rationalist and social reform basis. His successors, Keshab Chander Sen, gave it a more Christian outlook. The Brahmo Samaj influenced the rising middle classes of Bengal but as a religious faith it remained confined to few, among whom, however, were some outstanding persons and families. But even these families, though ardently interested in social and religious reform, tended to go back to the old Indian philosophic ideals of the Vedanta.

Elsewhere in India also the same tendencies were at work and dissatisfaction arose at the rigid social forms and protean character of Hinduism as practised. One of the most notable reform movements was started in the second half of the nineteenth century by a Gujarati, Swami Dayananda Saraswati, but it took root among the Hindus of the Punjab. This was the Arya Samaj and its slogan was 'Back to the Vedas.' This slogan really meant an elimination of developments of the Aryan faith since the Vedas; the Vedanta philosophy as it subsequently developed, the central conception of monism, the pantheistic outlook, as well as popular and cruder developments, were all alike severely condemned. Even the Vedas were interpreted in a particular way. The Arya Samaj was a reaction to the influence of Islam and Christianity, more especially the former. It was a crusading and reforming movement from within, as well as a defensive organization for protection against external attacks. It introduced proselytization into Hinduism and thus tended to come into conflict with other proselytizing religions. The Arya Samaj, which had been a close approach to Islam, tended to become a defender of everything Hindu, against what it considered as the encroachments of other faiths. It is significant that it spread chiefly among the middle-class Hindus of the Punjab and the United Provinces. At one time it was considered by the Government as a politically revolutionary movement, but the large numbers of Government servants in it made it thoroughly respectable. It has done very good work in the spread of education both among boys and girls, in improving the condition of women, and in raising the status and standards of the depressed classes. About the same period as Swami Dayananda, a different type of person lived in Bengal and his life influenced many of the new English-educated classes. He was Shri Ramakrishna Paramahansa, a simple man, no scholar but a man of faith, and not interested in social reform as such. He was in a direct line with Chaitanya and other Indian saints. Essentially religious and yet broad-minded, in his search for .self-realization he had even met Moslem and Christian mystics some of whom lived with him for some time. He settled down at Dakshineshwar near Calcutta, and his extraordinary personality and character gradually attracted attention. People who went to visit him, and some who were even inclined to scoff at this simple man of faith, were powerfully influenced and many who had been completely westernized felt that here was something they had missed. Stressing the essentials of religious faith, he linked up the various aspects of the Hindu religion and philosophy and seemed to represent all of them in his own person. Indeed he brought within his fold other religions also. Opposed to all sectarianism, he emphasized that all roads lead to truth. He was like some of the saints we read about in the past records of Asia and Europe. Difficult to understand in the context of modern life, and yet fitting into India's many-coloured pattern and accepted and revered by many of her people as a man with a touch of the divine fire about him. His personality impressed itself on all who saw him and many who never saw him have been influenced by the story of his life. Among these latter is Romain Rolland who has written a story of his life and that of his chief disciple, Swami Vivekananda. Vivekananda, together with his brother disciples, founded the non-sectarian Ramakrishna Mission of service. Rooted in the past and full of pride in India's heritage, Vivekananda was yet modern in his approach to life's problems and was a kind of bridge between the past of India and her present. He was a powerful orator in Bengali and English and a graceful writer of Bengali prose and poetry. He was a fine figure of a man, imposing, full of poise and dignity, sure of himself and his mission, and at the same time full of a dynamic and fiery energy and a passion to push India forward. He came as a tonic to the depressed and demoralized Hindu mind and gave it self-reliance and some roots in the past. He attended the Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893, spent over a year in the U.S.A., travelled across Europe, going as far as Athens and Constantinople, and visited Egypt, China, and Japan. Wherever he went, he created a minor sensation not only by his presence but by what he said and how he said it. Having seen this Hindu Sanyasin once it was difficult to forget him or his message. In America he was called the 'cyclonic Hindu.' He was himself greatly influenced by his travels in western countries; he admired British perseverance and the vitality and spirit of equality of the American people. 'America is the best field in the world to carry on any idea,' he wrote to a friend in India. But he was not impressed by the manifestations of religion in the west and his faith in the Indian philosophical and spiritual background became firmer. India, in spite of her degradation, still represented to him the Light. He preached the monism of the Advaita philosophy of the Vedanta and was convinced that only this could be the future religion of thinking humanity. For the Vedanta was not only spiritual but rational and in harmony with scientific investigations of external nature. 'This universe has not been created by any extra-cosmic God, nor is it the work of any outside genius. It is self-creating, self-dissolving, self-manifesting, One Infinite Existence, the Brahma.' The Vedanta ideal was of the solidarity of man and his inborn divine nature; to see God in man is the real God-vision; man is the greatest of all beings. But 'the abstract Vedanta must become living—poetic—in everyday life; out of hopelessly intricate mythology must come concrete moral forms; and out of bewildering Yogi-ism must come the most scientific and practical psychology.' India had fallen because she had narrowed herself, gone into her shell and lost touch with other nations, and thus sunk into a state of 'mummified' and 'crystallized' civilization.
Caste, which was necessary and desirable in its early forms, and meant to develop
individuality and freedom, had become a monstrous degradation, the opposite of what it was meant to be, and had crushed the masses.  
Caste was a form of social organization which was and should be kept separate from religion. Social organizations should change with the changing limes. Passionately, Vivekananda condemned the meaningless metaphysical discussions and arguments about ceremonials and especially the touch-me-notism of the upper caste. 'Our religion is in the kitchen. Our God is the cooking-pot, and our religion is: "don't touch me, I am holy." ' He kept away from politics and disapproved of the politicians of his day. But again and again he laid stress on the necessity for liberty and equality and the raising of the masses. 'Liberty of thought and action is the only condition of life, of growth and well-being. Where it does not exist, the man, the race, the nation must go.' 'The only hope of India is from the masses. The upper classes are physically and morally dead.' He wanted to combine western progress with India's spiritual background. 'Make a European society with India's religion.' 'Become an occidental of occidentals in your spirit of equality, freedom, work, and energy, and at the same time a Hindu to the very backbone in religious culture, and instincts.' Progressively, Vivekananda grew more international in outlook: 'Even in politics and sociology, problems that were only national twenty years ago can no longer be solved on national grounds only. They are assuming huge proportions, gigantic shapes. They can only be solved when looked at in the broader light of international grounds. International organizations, international combinations, international laws are the cry of the day. That shows solidarity. In science, every day they are coming to a similar broad view of matter.' And again: 'There cannot be any progress without the whole world following in the wake, and it is becoming every day clearer that the solution of any problem can never be attained on racial, or national, or narrow grounds.

Every idea has to become broad till it covers the whole of this world, every aspiration must go on increasing till it has engulfed the whole of humanity, nay the whole of life, within its scope.' All this fitted in with Vivekananda's view of the Vedanta philosophy, and he preached this from end to end of India. 'I am thoroughly convinced that no individual or nation can live by holding itself apart from the community of others, and wherever such an attempt has been made under false ideas of greatness, policy or holiness—the result has always been disastrous to the secluding one.' 'The fact of our isolation from all the other nations of the world is the cause of our degeneration and its only remedy is getting back into the current of the rest of the world. Motion is the sign of life.' He once wrote: 'I am a socialist not because I think it is a perfect system, but half a loaf is better than no bread. The other systems have been tried and found wanting. Let this one be tried—if for nothing else, for the novelty of the thing.' Vivekananda spoke of many things but the one constant refrain of his speech and writing was abhay—be fearless, be strong. For him man was no miserable sinner but a part of divinity; why should he be afraid of anything? 'If there is a sin in the world it is weakness; avoid all weakness, weakness is sin, weakness is death.' That had been the great lesson of the Upanishads. Fear breeds evil and weeping and wailing. There had been enough of that, enough of softness. 'What our country now wants are muscles of iron and nerves of steel, gigantic wills which nothing can resist, which can penetrate into the mysteries and the secrets of the universe, and will accomplish their purpose in any fashion, even if it meant going down to the bottom of the ocean and meeting death face to face.' He condemned 'occultism and mysticism. . .these creepy things; there may be great truths in them, but they have nearly destroyed us . . . . And here is the test of truth—anything that makes you weak physically, intellectually, and spiritually, reject as poison, there is no life in it, it cannot be true. Truth is strengthening. Truth is purity, truth is all-knowledge . . . . These mysticisms, in spite of some grains of truth in them, are generally weakening... .Go back to your Upanishads, the shining, the strengthening, the bright philosophy;and part from all these mysterious things, all these weakening things. Take up this philosophy; the greatest truths are the simplest things in the world, simple as your own existence.' And beware of superstition. 'I would rather see everyone of you rank atheists than superstitious fools, for the atheist is alive, and you can make something of him. But if superstition enters, the brain is gone, the brain is softening, degradation has seized upon the life . . . .Mystery-mongering and superstition are always signs of weakness.'[*Most of these extracts have been taken from'Lectures from Colombo to Almora' by Swami Vivekananda (1933) and 'Letters of Swami Vivekananda' (1942) both published by theAdvaita Ashrama, Mayavati, Almora, Himalayas. In the 'Letters' p. 390, there is a remarkable letter written by Vivekananda to a Moslem friend. In the course of this he writes : ' Whether we call it Vedantism or any ism, the truth is that Advaitism is the last word of religion and thought and the only position from which one can look upon all religions and sects with love. We believe it is the religion of the future enlightened humanity. The Hindus may get the credit of arriving at it earlier than other races, they being an older race than either the Hebrew or the Arab; yet practical Advaitism, which looks upon and behaves to all mankind as one's own soul, is yet to be developed among the Hindus universally. 'On the other hand our experience is that if ever the followers of any religion approach to this equality in an appreciable degree in the plane of practical work-a-day life—it may be i/uite unconscious generally of the deeper meaning and the underlying principle of such conduct, which the Hindus as a rule so clearly perceive—it is those of Islam and Islam alone....'For our own motherland a junction of the two great systems, Hinduism and Islam — Vedanta brain and Islam body—is the only hope.'/ see in my mind's eye the future perfect India rising out of this chaos and strife, glorious and invincible, with Vedanta brain and Islam body.' This letter is dated Almora, June 10th, 1898.].

So Vivekananda thundered from Cape Comorin on the southern tip of India to the Himalayas, and he wore himself out in the process, dying in 1902 when he was thirty-nine years of age. A contemporary of Vivekananda, and yet belonging much more to a later generation, was Rabindranath Tagore. The Tagore family had played a leading part in various reform movements in Bengal during the nineteenth century. There were men of spiritual stature in it and fine writers and artists, but Rabindranath towered above them all, and indeed all over India his position gradually became one of unchallenged supremacy. His long life of creative activity covered two entire generations and he seems almost of our present day. He was no politician, but he was too sensitive and devoted to the freedom of the Indian people to remain always in his ivory tower of poetry and song. Again and again he stepped out of it, when he could tolerate some development no longer, and in prophetic language warned the British Government or his own people. He played a prominent part in the Swadeshi movement that swept through Bengal in the first decade of the twentieth century, and again when he gave up his knighthood at the time of the Amritsar  massacre. His constructive work in the field of education, quietly begun, has already made Shanti Niketan one of the focal points of Indian culture. His influence over the mind of India, and specially of successive rising generations, has been tremendous. Not Bengali only, the language in which he himself wrote, but all the modern languages of India have been moulded partly by his writings. More than any other Indian, he has helped to bring into harmony the ideals of the east and the west, and broadened the bases of Indian nationalism. He has been India's internationalist par excellence, believing and working for international co-operation, taking India's message to other countries and bringing their message to his own people. And yet with all his internationalism, his feet have always been planted firmly on India's soil and his mind has been saturated with the wisdom of the Upanishads. Contrary to the usual course of development, as he grew older he became more radical in his outlook and views. Strong individualist as he was, he became an admirer of the great achievements of the

Russian Revolution, especially in the spread of education, culture, health, and the spirit of equality. Nationalism is a narrowing creed, and nationalism in conflict with a dominating imperialism produces all manner of frustrations and complexes. It was Tagore's immense service to India, as it has been Gandhi's in a different plane, that he forced the people in some measure out of their narrow grooves of thought and made them think of broader issues affecting humanity. Tagore was the great humanist of India. Tagore and Gandhi have undoubtedly been the two outstanding and dominating figures of India in this first half of the twentieth century. It is instructive to compare and contrast them. No two persons could be so different from one another in their make up or temperaments. Tagore, the aristocratic artist, turned democrat with proletarian sympathies, represented essentially the cultural tradition of India, the tradition of accepting life in the fullness thereof and going through it with song and dance. Gandhi, more a man of the people, almost the embodiment of the Indian peasant, represented the other ancient tradition of India, that of renunciation and asceticism. And yet Tagore was primarily the man of thought, Gandhi of concentrated and ceaseless activity. Both, in their different ways had a world outlook, and both were at the same time wholly Indian. They seemed to present different but harmonious aspects of India and to complement one another. Tagore and Gandhi bring us to our present age. But we were considering an earlier period and the effect produced on the people, and especially the Hindus, by the stress laid by Vivekananda and others on the past greatness of India and their pride in it. Vivekananda himself was careful to warn his people not to dwell too much on the past, but to look to the future. 'When, O Lord,' he wrote, 'shall our land be free from this eternal dwelling upon the past?' But he himself and others had evoked that past, and there was a glamour in it, and no getting away from it. This looking back to the past and finding comfort and sustenance there was helped by a renewed study of ancient literature and history, and later by the story of the Indian colonies in the eastern seas, as this unfolded itself. Mrs. Annie Besant was a powerful influence in adding to the confidence of the Hindu middle classes in their spiritual and national heritage. There was a spiritual and religious element about all this, and yet there was a strong political background to it. The rising middle classes were politically inclined and were not so much in search of a religion; but they wanted some cultural roots to cling on to, something that gave them assurance of their own worth, something that would reduce the sense of frustration and humiliation that foreign conquest and rule had produced. In every country with a growing nationalism there is this search apart from religion, this tendency to go to the past. Iran, without in any way weakening in its religious faith, has deliberately gone back to its pre-Islamic days of greatness and utilized this memory to strengthen its present-day nationalism. So also in other countries. The past of India, with all its cultural variety and greatness, was a common heritage of all the Indian people, Hindu, Moslem, Christian, and others, and their ancestors had helped

to build it. The fact of subsequent conversion to other faiths did not deprive them of this heritage; just as the Greeks, after their conversion to Christianity, did not lose their pride in the mighty achievements of their ancestors, or the Italians in the great days of the Roman Republic and early empire. If all the people of India had been converted to Islam or Christianity, her cultural heritage would still have remained to inspire them and give them that poise and dignity, which a long record of civilized existence with all its mental struggles with the problems of life gives a people. If we had been an independent nation, all of us in this country working together in the present for a common future would no doubt have looked to our common past with equal pride. Indeed, during the Mughal period, the emperors and their chief associates, newcomers as they were, wanted to identify themselves with that past and to share it with others. But the accidents and processes of history, helped no doubt by man's policy and weaknesses, worked differently, and the changes which came prevented normal development. One would have expected that the new middle class, which was the product of the impact from the west and of technological and economic changes, would have a common background in Hindu and Moslem alike. To some extent this was so, and yet differences arose which were not present, or were present in far lesser degree, in the feudal and semi-feudal classes and the masses. The Hindu and Moslem masses were hardly distinguishable from each other, the old aristocracy had developed common ways and standards. They yet followed a common culture and had common custom and festivals. The middle classes began to diverge psychologically and later in other ways. To begin with, the new middle classes were almost absent among the Moslems. Their avoidance of western education, their keeping away from trade and industry, and their adherence to feudal ways, gave a start to the Hindus which they profited by and retained. British policy was inclined to be pro-Hindu and anti-Moslem, except in the Punjab, where Moslems took more easily to western education than elsewhere. But the Hindus had got a big start long before the British took possession of the Punjab. Even in the Punjab, though conditions were more equal for the Hindu and Moslem, the Hindus had an economic advantage. Anti-foreign sentiment was shared alike by the Hindu and Moslem aristocracy and the masses. The Revolt of 1857 was a joint affair, but in its suppression Moslems felt strongly, and to some extent rightly, that they were the greater sufferers. This Revolt also put an end finally to any dreams or fantasies of the revival of the Delhi empire. That empire had vanished long ago, even before the British arrived upon the scene. The Marathas had smashed it and controlled Delhi itself.