India, Its Life and Thought. John P. Jones
Many are now asking, "How shall this trouble be removed and peace and good-will be restored to the land?"
Nothing is more necessary than the cultivation of mutual understanding between the two races. It is very unfortunate that, in this matter, the situation has not improved during the last quarter of a century. Indeed, the racial problem is more acute now, as it is in America, than it was ever before. All seem too ready to accept, as conclusive, the statement of Kipling—
"O! the East is East and the West is West,
And never the twain shall meet,
Till earth and sky stand presently
Before God's great judgment seat."
And they too easily ignore the other part which conveys his lesson—
"But there is neither East nor West,
Nor border, nor breed, nor birth,
Where two strong men stand face to face,
Though they come from the ends of the earth."
The parties concerned in India to-day must learn the lesson of mutual forbearance and study to understand each other's peculiarities and enter more fully into each other's thoughts, sentiments, and idiosyncrasies.
The Anglo-Indian stands most in need of this lesson of aptitude. The Anglo-Saxon is notoriously conceited and given to thinking that he has nothing to learn from other people, especially those who are politically subject to him. He looks with contempt upon the "mild Hindu," and maintains that it is the business of Brahman and Sudra alike meekly to submit to, and obey, his lordship. He tramples upon their sensibilities and declines to learn any lessons of wisdom from them. On the other hand, Brahman and Sudra have ineradicable prejudices, which they nurse with extraordinary fondness and cherish with unyielding tenacity. The leader of this people, the Brahman, is, in his way, even more haughty than the Anglo-Indian.
This situation is full of difficulty. Here we have two races, the Aryan of the East and the Aryan of the West, standing face to face. Each in its way claims dominance. The Westerner claims superiority by right of conquest and of advanced civilization and general progress. And he is not backward in presenting his vaunted claims! The Easterner, on the other hand, has ruled India by right of intelligence and by every claim of social and religious distinction, for at least thirty centuries. He stands to-day a match for any individual, East or West, in intellectual prowess. But, more than this, socially and religiously he regards himself as the first son of heaven. Contact with an Englishman, even with the King-Emperor himself, is for him pollution, which must be removed by elaborate and exacting religious ceremonies. To eat with any such would be a sin of the deepest dye. How can one expect such a man to meet with a foreigner on even terms, or to treat him with equality and true friendship? Before India loves its conquerors, and sympathy and good understanding are established between them, both parties need to be born again. At least they must endeavour to lay aside their prejudices and to cultivate the kinship of their united destiny. The writer recently listened to an eloquent address delivered by a cultured Hindu gentleman, in which he implored Anglo-Indians to cultivate their friendship and to forget the different shades of their complexion. The prejudice of colour is, he maintains, as strong in India as it is in America, and is perhaps more bitter than ever. A man, said he truly, should not be condemned by his brother because of his slightly different shade of colour, which is only skin deep.
It is also certain that Great Britain should and must give to the inhabitants of this land more influence and higher position in the direction of the affairs of the State. After a training of more than a century by England herself, India is prepared for a larger place in the direction of her own political destiny. Western civilization, western education, and the Christian religion have wrought wonders in India in the development of a new life and a new consciousness among many of the people. There are thousands of men, to-day, who are in every way competent to occupy high positions in government. And it is impossible that they should be kept loyal and contented under a régime which constantly reminds them of their subjection and their lack of worthiness to fill any but subordinate positions. It is true, as we have seen, that government is extending the privileges and multiplying the opportunities of such men. But it is not doing this with the pace, the grace, and the heartiness that circumstances demand.
On the other hand, Indians must seek, increasingly, to cultivate social and moral aptitude, rather than to be forever claiming and demanding rights. The best friends of India believe that she has just as many political rights as she is able wisely to exercise. Representative Institutions have already been established here both in the conduct of Municipalities, District Boards, and of the Provincial and the Imperial Governments. The people are being trained for the wisest exercise of political rights. But many who have carefully observed the political corruption which they reveal in the exercise of already acquired rights, think that no greater evil could befall India than that of a sudden bestowal, by the State, of a great extension of these privileges.
The root of India's present incapacity for self-government is not intellectual, but social and moral. No one doubts that there is ability enough; but many believe that India must develop much upon the lower ranges of domestic sanity and social ethics before it is prepared for enhanced political privileges. The ignorance and the disabilities of women in India are a crying injustice, whose influence penetrates every department of Indian life, and for the removal of which educated Indians will hardly raise a finger.
The caste system, with its numberless stereotyped divisions, its myriad insurmountable barriers between class and class, and its countless petty jealousies and mutual antagonisms, is well known to all. And so long as Hindus continue to worship this demon, caste, it is impossible for them to become a united body to which, with any courtesy, the name Nation can be applied. Nor can they blend into such action as can in any sense be called National or patriotic. India is wofully lacking in the first essential of self-government—public spirit.
In other words, the most urgent need of India at present is social reform, which depends entirely upon the people, and not political reform, which must come from the State. And yet the social reform movement in India is less rapid to-day than at any time during the last quarter of a century. And those who cry loudest for political rights are the ones who cast a sinister eye upon the social reform movement.
And it must be remembered that the people who cry most loudly for national independence to-day are the very ones whose antecedents and whose fundamental conceptions of life and of society would forbid them to grant even the most elementary social, not to say political, rights to one-half of the population of the land. The way the Brahman and the higher Sudras, who are clamouring for what they regard God-given rights from the British government, deny in principle and practice, to their fellow-citizens, the so-called outcasts and other members of the community, the most elementary principles of liberty and privilege which they themselves now enjoy, is a significant comment upon their political sanity and sense of congruity.
In connection with this same problem, Indians should not forget that in the multiplicity of antipathies which exist between the many races of India, and in the religious conflicts, which too often arise, there is need, and there will be need for many years, of one supreme power which has the ability to hold the balance of justice evenly between race and race, and to command social and religious liberty to the three hundred millions of the land. And this is what Great Britain has done and is doing for India. Pax Britannica has been one of the greatest boons that the West has conferred upon the East.
It may also be well to add that Indians should have regard to the limits of the rights of a subject people. It is useless to talk of self-government, until they are able to exercise the same; and even the most rabid Hindu cannot dream that India is ripe for self-government and could maintain it for a month if the British were to leave the country. And if the British must remain here at all, it must be as the dominant power. Canada and Australia, in their independence, may be ideals for India to pattern after; but India cannot enjoy the rights of those two independent colonies