India, Its Life and Thought Part 1

India, Its Life and Thought.

by John P. Jones.

PREFACE

To the people of the West, the inhabitants of India are the least understood and the most easily misunderstood of all men.

It is partly because they are antipodal to the West--the farthest removed in thought and life. They are also the most secretive, and find perennial delight in concealment and evasion.

According to Hindu teaching, the Supreme Spirit forever sports in illusion. It continuously manifests itself through unreal and false forms, which delude and lead astray ignorant man. In harmony with this philosophy of the Divine--and may it not be as a result of it?--the people of India too often delight in unreal and deceptive exhibitions of themselves. At any rate, it is exceedingly difficult for a man of the West, especially he of the Anglo-Saxon type, to apprehend the full significance and the correct drift of life and thought of this land.

It is amusing, when not discouraging, to witness travellers, who have rushed through India in a winter tour, publish volumes of their misconceptions and ill-digested theories about the people with an oracular emphasis which is equalled only by their ignorance.

The author of this book makes no claim to a right to speak _ex cathedra_ upon this subject. Nevertheless, thirty years of matured experience in this land, living in constant touch with the people and studying with eagerness their life and thought, gives him an humble claim to speak once more upon the subject.

Even now, however, his pride of knowledge is chastened by the oft-recurring surprises which the Oriental nature and life still bring to him. And he does not cease to pray, with a western saint, who, at the end of a half century of work for the people of India, daily cried out,--

"O Lord, help me to know these people and to come into intimate relations of life with them!"

If, in these pages, he can help others of the West to come face to face with the immense and intricate problems which confront all who desire to know, to help, and to bless India, and shall enable them to understand better the conditions and characteristics of life in the Land of the Vedas, he will feel amply repaid for his labours.

I express my deep grat.i.tude to the Rev. J. L. Barton, D.D., for his kind encouragement in the publis.h.i.+ng of this book; and also to the Rev. W. W. Wallace, M.A., for his generous aid in the proof-reading.

J. P. JONES.

CHAPTER I

INDIA'S UNREST

India has been called the land of quiet repose, content to remain anch.o.r.ed to the h.o.a.ry past, and proud of her immobility. Invasion after invasion has swept over her; but--

"The East bowed low before the blast, In patient, deep disdain; She let the legions thunder past, And plunged in thought again."

Yet this same India is now throbbing with discontent, and is breathing, in all departments of her life, a deep spirit of unrest.

This spirit has recently become acute and seemed, for a while, in danger of bursting into open rebellion, not unlike the Mutiny of half a century ago.

I

This movement is but a part of the new awakening of the East. The world has seen its marvellously rapid development and fruitage in j.a.pan. It is witnessing the same process in China and Korea. The people of India, likewise, have been touched by its power and are no longer willing to rest contentedly as a subject people or a stagnant race.

This movement is not only political, it permeates every department of life; and it partakes of the general unrest which has taken possession of all the civilized nations of the earth. It is really the dawning of India's consciousness of strength and of a purpose to take her place, and to play a worthy part, in the great world drama.

This spirit found its incarnation and warmest expression in the opposition to the government scheme, two years ago, under Lord Curzon, for the part.i.tion of Bengal. The Bengalees keenly resented the division of their Province; for it robbed the clever Babu of many of the plums of office. He pet.i.tioned, and fomented agitation and opposition to the scheme. Then, in his spite against the government, he organized a boycott against all forms of foreign industry and commerce. This has been conducted with mad disregard to the people's own economic interest, and has, moreover, developed into bitter racial animosity.

The Bengalee has striven hard to carry into other Provinces also his spirit of antagonism to the State. Though he has not succeeded in convincing many others of the wisdom of his method, he has spread the spirit of discontent and of dissatisfaction far beyond his own boundary. Even sections of the land which denounce the boycott as folly, if not suicide, have taken up the political slogan of the Babu (_Bande Mataram_--Hail, Mother!) and are demanding, mostly in inarticulate speech, such rights and privileges as they imagine themselves to be deprived of.

The movement is, in some respects, a reactionary one; and race hatred is one of its most manifest results. It is not merely a rising of the East against the West; it is also a conflict between Mohammedans and Hindus. In Eastern Bengal, where the Mussulmans are in a large majority, and where the Hindus have become the most embittered, the former have stood aloof from the latter and have opposed the boycott.

This has led to increasing hatred between the members of these two faiths,--a feeling which has spread all over the country, and which has carried them into opposing camps. This is, in one way, fortunate for the government, since it has given rise to definite and warm expressions of loyalty by the whole Mohammedan community.

Disgruntled graduates of the University and school-boys take the most prominent place in this movement. The Universities annually send forth an army of men supplied with degrees--last year it was 1570 B.A.'s; and it is the conviction of nine-tenths of them that it is the duty of the government to give them employment as soon as they graduate. As this is impossible, many of them nurse their disappointment into discontent and opposition to the powers that be. Many of them become dangerous demagogues and fomenters of sedition. Not a few such are found in every Province of the country. And they find in the High School and College students the best material to work upon. These boys have been the most numerous and excited advocates of this movement. As in Russia, so in India the educational inst.i.tutions are becoming the hotbeds of dissatisfaction and opposition to the State. But there is this difference. In Russia the University student is much more truly an exponent of public sentiment, and more ready to suffer for that sentiment, than are the dependent youth of colleges in India.

This movement has not, to any considerable extent, reached the ma.s.ses. Nine-tenths of the population of India are satisfied with the government and have no desire to change the present order of things.

Indeed, they are deeply ignorant of the grievances which the higher cla.s.ses nurse into bitterness. And yet it should not be forgotten that the ignorance of the people, coupled with their narrow superst.i.tion and lively imagination, make them very inflammable material under the influence of eloquent demagogues.

II

One of the most marked causes of this activity and discontent is the recent victory of j.a.pan over Russia. It is hard for the West to realize how much that event has stirred the imagination and quickened the ambition of all the people of the East. They regard that war as the great conflict of the East and the West. India had not the slightest idea that j.a.pan would come triumphant out of that conflict.

But the victory of j.a.pan instantly suggested to all men of culture in India the question, "Why should our land be subject to a far-off, and a small, western country? Why should we be content with our dependence and not reveal our manhood and our prowess, as j.a.pan did?" These are inquiries which have opened up new visions of power and greatness to the people of India. j.a.pan and its people have been immensely popular in India since their recent victory. And Hindus believe that the peace perfected at Portsmouth was the harbinger of a new era of liberty and independence for all the East.

The growing influence of western education in India has had much to do with the present state of things. It is true that India is still a land of ignorance. It is a lamentable fact that only 1 in 10 of the males and 1 in 144 of the females can read. Only 22.6 per cent of the boys of school-going age attend school, and only 2.6 per cent of the girls. And yet the enrolment of more than five million scholars in the public schools is a significantly hopeful fact as compared with the past history of India.

This education is distinctly on _western_ lines. And connected with the five Universities of India there are many thousands of young men and women who are devoting themselves to a deep study of western thought and of western ideas of liberty. The Calcutta University alone has, in its affiliated colleges, more students registered than Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Toronto combined. In that city, which is the centre of the present unrest, there are 12,000 young men in the Colleges, and 30,000 pupils in the High Schools. This host of young men and women are imbibing modern ideas of manliness, independence, and liberty such as India never knew in the past; and they go out into the world with new ambitions for their country and inspired with not a little "divine unrest."

In close connection with this educational influence is that of western civilization and Christian ideals. The government of this land is built upon Christian principles and is animated by that spirit of civilization which dominates the West. And we know that these make for manhood and independence everywhere. It would be a sad thing for Great Britain, as it would be for the Christian missionary in India, if these lofty principles, which they inculcate, did not acquire increasing power over these youth.

And it should not be forgotten that an increasing number of the elect youth of India go to England for the completion of their training, and return well equipped with Anglo-Saxon ideas of human rights and of manhood's claims.

Nor is this merely a movement of the people of India. There is a strong body of Englishmen, several of whom are members of Parliament, banded together in England, for the purpose of promoting the political influence of the people of India in the conduct of the affairs of their own country. These men believe that India has a right to a much larger meed of self-government than she now enjoys. And they seize upon every opportunity to urge upon the Home Government the duty of granting added power to the people, and also to advise the leaders of Indian thought as to their wisest methods of procedure. There are not a few radicals in Britain who believe that India should govern herself as an independent colony. And they rouse within Hindu youth who go to England a radical spirit of discontent and disloyalty. It was only the other day that Lord Ampthill warned these men, because of the insidious influence which they were exercising for the overthrow of the British power in the East.

The National Congress, which has just reached its majority, has a profound influence in the development of a national consciousness, and in the furtherance of the cause of independence and political power in the land. The very existence of this inst.i.tution is one of the highest compliments to British rule in India. It would be impossible for one to imagine the Russian government permitting such a body of men to gather every year in solemn conclave to devote several days to a vehement criticism of all the princ.i.p.al acts of the State, to give vent to disloyal sentiments, and to promote the spirit of disaffection throughout the country. This Congress has devoted nearly all its time to a denunciation of the powers that be; and during these twenty-one years the writer has not seen one word of commendation or one vote of appreciation of the State in the reports of the proceedings of the Congress. And the demands of the Congress, inspired as they are by Anglo-Saxon friends in Great Britain, are becoming annually more definite and urgent.

Until the meeting of 1906 there was no divergence of sentiment among Congress-wallahs. No dissentient voice or conflicting opinions were allowed. It is to the honour and highest interest of the Congress that this stage has now been pa.s.sed and the healthy rivalry of parties is felt and heard in Congress councils. It is to be regretted that at the last Congress meeting, in Surat, these two parties--the Moderates and the Extremists--came into bitter conflict. It was largely due to the past supineness of the Moderates who permitted the other party (which is a small but noisy minority) to resort to bl.u.s.ter in order to force their pet and bitter schemes of disorder upon the Congress. When, ultimately, the Moderates determined to exercise the rights of the majority, the others resorted to force and caused the Congress to be suspended in disorder, thus revealing the sad spectacle of the present incapacity of the leaders of the people to govern themselves and the country.

This is, however, perhaps the best thing that could have happened for the highest interest of the Congress itself. The two parties are now clearly defined--the one seeking, through const.i.tutional agitation, self-government on colonial lines, like Canada; the other determined to overthrow the government of the foreigner and to establish its own upon the ruins. And agitation in this behalf is to be conducted in every possible way, const.i.tutional or otherwise.

The Moderates are now thoroughly roused and have driven out from their councils the irreconcilables and fire-eaters, and can now work with more harmony and success for the attainment of their wiser plans and more reasonable aims.

A few years ago, the State ignored, when it did not ridicule, the National Congress. To-day none recognizes its power more than does the government.

And it is most suggestive and instructive to see this body, of fully three thousand men, gathered together from all parts of this great peninsula--men who represent peoples that speak more than four hundred languages and dialects! They conduct their sessions in English, which is the only universal tongue of the country. And a purer English is hardly spoken in any deliberative or legislative body in any other land; and some of the addresses are delivered with a force, and are adorned with a logic and a rhetoric, which are truly eloquent. Verily, the weapon of popular power, though largely used against the government, is the best compliment possible to the State which has created it.

The Press also has marvellously grown in power and in dignity during the last quarter of a century. At the present time there are scores of dailies, and many more weeklies and monthlies, published in the English tongue by the natives of the land. And they discuss, with intelligence and discrimination, if not with moderation, all matters of State and of political interest. Recently some of these papers have become thoroughly radical and oppose the government at all points.

But it is the vernacular Press, representing, as it does, hundreds of newspapers in all the tongues of India, that carries its influence into the villages and homes of the uneducated millions. The present condition of discontent with the government has been disseminated among the common people more by these vernacular papers than by any other agency. Many of these are thoroughly disloyal and seditious.

Very occasionally they are prosecuted for their inflammatory editorials, and their editors are imprisoned.

As a matter of fact, there is hardly any country where the Press has greater liberties than in India; and there is no land on earth where that liberty is more abused. The very toleration of the government is turned as a keen weapon against it.

The same thing is true of the freedom of public speech. There is not another land, save perhaps America, whose citizens have greater privileges in this matter. The seditious speeches which have been made in many parts of India during the last two years, by Bengalees specially, and by a few other radicals, have been such as would in Europe lead to imprisonment if not to deportation. Bepin Chandra Pal, of Calcutta, has just closed a tour during which he has made many addresses, attended, in all cases, by thousands of students and disaffected members of the community, and has not only denounced the government as the very incarnation of unrighteousness and cruelty, but has also urged the people to do all they can, both const.i.tutionally and otherwise, to defeat and overthrow it and to establish a native rule upon its ruin. Any government, in order to ignore such language uttered in immense public a.s.semblies, must feel very secure in its power. Mr. Pal is only one of many who have thus far been granted absolute freedom to sow broadcast the seed of revolution.