Page:The Modern Review (July-December 1925).pdf/26
England, and even Indian philosophy needs the corrective of Western thinkers to obtain for it, in the open market of the world, its true value and appreciation. Away, therefore, with all thought of Indian independence! Such a destiny for India is altogether unthinkable; for she is far happier according to my own view as an integral part of the world-wide British Empire."
Such a method of propaganda as this might certainly be regarded as obnoxious, if there had been any reserve or secrecy about it, or any subtle attempt at concealment. But the writer himself is so entirely open and frank in his own belief and is so saturated with it, and, as it were, bubbling over, that it is possible to discount this, political attitude, altogether and ever watch for it with some amusement, when it comes, and yet at the same time enjoy the descriptive passages, which show a sincere artistic taste.
The very opening words of the Preface to this third volume, called the 'Heart of Aryavarta', are significant. He states that the whole trilogy has been designed, "to acquaint the reader with the nature of the problem which has arisen out of one of the most engrossing and fateful episodes in the recent history of mankind—the creation under the ægis of Great Britain of a vast Asiatic Empire, eastern by birth and tradition, to a large extent western by training and upbringing."
When we read these words and remember the title of the book, we feel the necessity of protesting that the history of Aryavarta goes far back beyond the ephemeral and superficial marks of an external British occupation and that the 'ægis of Great Britain' has too often meant unlimited protection for the exploiters. The reigns of the Great Moghal Emperors might truly be said to have moulded Indian history from within; but the heart of Aryavarta has not yet been touched by acts of sympathetic imagination, on the part of the British rulers. For one brief moment, when Raja Ram Mohan Roy offered the right hand of friendship to the Governor-General, Lord William Bentinek, it seemed possible that a new synthesis between East and West might be achieved on honourable terms. But that touch of kinship and fellowship soon disappeared, and the Mutiny blotted out its memory in blood. The truth is, that fifty years of sordid loot by an unscrupulous East India Trading Company, with which the British occupation of Madras and Bengal began, has been like a mill-stone hanging round the neck of the administration ever since. The 'tax-gatherer and the policeman' have been the two most promiment functions of British rule in the eyes of the vast masses of the Indian continent. The mercenary educational policy of training up Indian clerks for British service has also failed to produce wholesome fruit as Lord Ronaldshay himself confesses in so many words. The gulf between the two faces, the British and the Indian, is lamentably widening every day. The new type of English-speaking Indian is a disillusioned and disappointed man.
With the definite political aim in view of finding a via media between the British and the Indian position, Lord Ronaldshay goes on to consider the different types of educated Indians of the present day. He divides them into three main categories. The first and third classes he condemns outright. But the second class he accepts as his own ideal. I shall explain this briefly as follows:
(i) Lord Ronaldshay speakes with a certain dislike, and even disdain, of those Indians who have become, by their modern education, 'nude Englishmen.' This final outcome of the Imperial Drama he realises to be nothing but a false ending to the play. He has no wish whatever to see Macaulay's wish fulfilled and a generation of educated Indians growing up, 'more English than the English themselves' (to quote Macaulay's well-known words). Therefore, as far as the educational policy of the British Government in India has produced this most bitter result, he rejects it. He will have none of it. Here probably, his own artistic and aesthetic sense saves him. He is able to see both the incongruity and the ugliness of the process. In one way, this wholesome disgust with the anglicised product of western education, and with the ultimate conviction that such a system is wrong, profoundly wrong—these seem to me to form a land-mark, showing the point that the average British mind has reached at last after nearly a century of experiment. They reveal how far Macaulay has now been left behind. The world of human thought moves very slowly forward; but this victory seems at last finally achieved.
(ii) Lord Ronaldshay next comes to the 'moderates', on whom he bestows lavishly all the praise he can offer. His own heart is with these 'moderates' according to him, they alone have grasped the truth about the meeting of East and West. They are truly British-Indian. "In every sphere" he states, "not excluding that of politics, there are men in India who appreciate the essential wisdom of treading the middle way."
Here it is obvious that Lord Ronaldshay has in mind the phrase used by the Buddha concerning the Eightfold Aryan Path, which was called the Middle Way—the pathway of right thought, right action, etc., whereby the harassed soul of man might reach the bliss of Nirvana. We turn back with some bewilderment, therefore, to the title of the book—'The Heart of Aryavarta'—and wonder whether the author does actually believe that the 'moderates' of the present age are those, who best express these age-long religious yearnings of ancient India as embodied in Buddhism, or in the Upanishad's teaching concerning the soul of man and God and Immortality! Indeed, we come down to the ground with a crash from those high regions when Lord Ronaldshay goes on as follows:—
"In the sphere of politics, men of moderate views and balanced judgment have been all but swept aside by men of extreme opinions riding on a tidal wave of bitter racial feeling. Hence the tragedy of the present situation." The question naturally arises, if to accept passively the British occupation and to make the best of both worlds is the 'middle way' of India, then what is the meaning of all these daring renunciations in the sphere of man's inner life, for which India so pre-eminently stands? Were the rishis, who framed the Vedanta, 'men of moderate views'? Was the Lord Buddha a 'moderate'?
(iii) Lastly, Lord Ronaldshay comes to the class that, in his own mind, is the villain in the play. He calls this class 'the perverted patriot'. This character in Indian politics is regarded by him as the source of all the mischief! Lord Ronaldshay has no doubt whatever on that point.
"A consuming hatred of the West" he writes "is gripping the spirit of modern India with a tenacity comparable with that displayed by the