THE MAKING OF MODERN INDIA BY NICOL MACNICOL, M.A., D.LITT. Author oj 'Iudian Theism'~ 'Psalms of 11larath!l Saz"lz/s', .,!i-'r, H U III P H R E Y 111 I L FOR D OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS London Edinburgh Glasgo,\\' Copenhagen New York Toronto Melbourne Cape Town Bombay Calcutta Madras Shanghai WHILE the de\l"s drop, \l"hile the gTCy turns to gold, '.i\Iid tumult of mcnJs wars, Through the faint silence of tbe lingering day, .And thE: long night of stars,- All pale and still a5 death she sleeps her sleep, And God's long \l"atch \l"e keep. Our eyes are heavy with dull weariness, Leaden with slumbering, So heavy and so dull \l"e do not see Him coming like a king; \Ye do not hear His footfall by our side,­ The Bridegroom for His bride. 'Surely this sleep is death,' \l"e say, 'the spells, 'That keep her bound so long, 'Are stronger than our best enchantments are.' 'There is one spell more strong. I 'Sure, life can ne'er be kindled in a clod.' 'Yea, by the kiss of Gael.' Then India, tranced, bound for centuries, Stirs at the whispered word; Him our eyes saw not, e'en in sleep she knows For her predestined Lord. Lo, at His tOl1ch the long enchantment breaks, And she who slept awakes. Printed in England TO THE CHURCH OF CHRIST THAT IS AND THAT IS TO BE IN INDIA PREFACE THE aim of this book is to provide some material by which to estimate the character of the forces that are making the new India, and the direction in which these forces are carrying her. They are of many kinds-poli­ tical, social, religious. Some of the most powerful are the ancient forms of thought and of belief which modern influences are modifying but by no means eliminating. At the centre of all these, influencing them and in­ fluenced by them, are those outstanding personalities, Indian in the texture of their minds and souls, who are leading their people into the unknown land of to-morrow. To conjecture what that future will be, to help in any way in forecasting what under wise guidance it may be,.­ these are fascinating and baffling tasks. The fascination of them is not always realized as it should be by the British people upon whom lies the duty of undertaking them and so of opening a way for the advance together of England and India, as comrades and friends, \Vith minds firm fixed upon the road To freedom-road that ne'er can weary one. This book seeks to help towards that end. Some of the chapters of which the book is composed were originally published in the form of articles in reviews, VI Prefare and In such cases the date of the original publication, where that has any significance for their contents, is noted. Grateful acknowledgement of permission to reo print has to be made to the publishers of the reviews in which the articles appeared. Thus Chapters II, V, and VI originally appeared in the COlltelllporary Re~'ie7C'; Chapter III in the Atlillltic 11/olltMJ'; Chapter IV in the Hibbert :Jourllal; Chapters VII, IX, and X in the Expositor; Chapters VIII, XIV, and X\' in the Illter­ natiollal Rc"kw ef !1fis.<iolls; Chapter XII in the Young j11m of Iudia: Chapter XVI in Tile East and tile West; and Chapter XVII in the London Times (Empire N"umber). XICOL ;\IACN"ICOL. CONTENTS PAGE 1. Introductory I PAJU I POLITIC\L PROGRESS II. The Situation in 1908 5 III. The Situation in 1923 17 PART II SOCL\L .'1~D RELIGIOGS G?\REST IV. The Conflict of Religions . 37 V. Tides of the Spirit VI. Indian Ideals and Present-day R~aliti~s PART III IDEAS VII. Hinduism as ~Iysticism VIII. Hindu Devotion 100 IX. Transmigration and Karma and their Influence in Living Hinduism . X. The Hindu Ideal of a Holy Life XI. Hinduism and the Way to God. VIII COlltClIts PART IV PERSOXALITIES PAGE XII. Indian \Yomen Poets '54 XIII. Raja Ram :,[ohun Roy '7 I XI\~. J)cl"cndranath Tagore ,89 XV. Some X otable Indian Christians '95 PART V -UXCHAXGIXG I~DL\ xn. '1'\\"0 Cults of Popular Hinduism 2I3 xnI. The DiYcrsions of an Indian Yillager . 227 I. INTRODUCTORY THE future of India, whether in her political relation­ ships or in her wider relations with the universe, presents a perplexing problem to the student of our time. N o~ where else in the world of to-day do we find a parallel situation to that of this land at once so highly civilized and so primitive, so rich and so poor, so wise and so ignorant, so capable and so incapable of guiding her own destiny, so enamoured of freedom and yet so bound by chains of her own forging. Such lands as China and Japan may resemble India in some or all of these re­ spects; the peculiar element in her case that gives it its uniqueness and its especial interest for us of the "Vest arises from her close association with a European people and with the civilization which they bring to bear upon her. Few have studied the problem of India with such know­ ledge and such imaginative insight as Sir Alfred Lyall. Many years ago he described England's function in that country as being' to superintend the tranquil elevation of the whole moral and intellectual standard '.' 'All that the English need do', he wrote, 'is to keep the peace and clear the way. Our vocation just now is to mount guard over India in the transitional period which may be expected to follow, much as we used to station a company 1 Asiatic Studies) vol. i, p. 327. B 2 Tlte MaIling of Modem India of soldiers to keep order at Jagannath's festival In the days of the East India Company. J agannath himself may be safely left exposed to the rising tide of that intellectual advancement which the people must certainly work out for themselves if they only keep pace and have patience.' A generation has passed since these words were written, and to those who to-day are seeking to pierce the darkness that hides the future of India it seems that the role of England must be changed. ''vVe believe', wrote the authors of the lVIontagu-Chelmsford Report in 191H, 'that the time has now come when the sheltered existence which we have given India cannot be prolonged without damage to her national life, ... that the placid, pathetic contentment of the masses is not the soil on which Indian nationhood will grow and that in deliber­ ately disturbing it we are working for her highest good.' The authors of the Report realized that a change was coming which it would be well for Great Britain to anticipate and to encourage. Tranquillity was past; a storm was gathering. Rabindranath Tagore describes in his RC1IIilliscC/lcCS how in his early life he, like so many . others, grew weary of' keeping pace and having patience '. 'Much rather, I said to myself, would I be an Arab Bedouin!' The new situation, of which there were signs then in the sky and in men's hearts, is upon us to-day with its perils and its perplexities. Spiritual forces that for long, as they flowed in upon the land, exercised a silent, leavening influence, have now begun, enormously quickened in their activity by the war and its effects, to cause upheavals :Jnd convulsions. Though lVIr. Gandhi is profoundly Hindu in his spirit, he is a very different figure from that of the 'ascetic and sceptic' that represented to Sir Alfred Lyall the ultimate element Introductory 3 in Hinduism. The power he has exerted and still exerts, allied with other disruptive forces, is affecting the outlook of every class and causing deep fissures in tl~e ancient structure of Hindu society. Those voices that Lord Curzon heard so many years ago' reverberat­ ing through the whispering galleries of the East' are still speaking with persuasion to multitudes in India and, though the old is far from being forgotten, it has become mingled indissolubly with the new. In order to conjecture the direction of India's future it is necessary to know something of her past and of the character and ideals of her people. The heritage that lJas come down to her has maintained through all the changes of the centuries a deeply-rooted consistency. Religion has always been that which has seemed to her people the principal thing in the universe and towards its explanation of life's meaning and its consolations in lire's sorrows their eyes are instinctively directed. To endeavour, therefore, t<1 understand what India will be to-morrow without taking into account what her religion was yesterday and is to-day would be a very futile occupation. \Ve are onlookers at the break-up of a very ancient civilization, buttressed by deeply grounded re­ ligious convictions. There is perhaps no civilization that the world has seen so compacted of every strengthening element that religion, tradition, custom can supply, as is that of India. Inevitably the process of its break-up will be slow, and inevitably it will be accompanied by earth tremors, volcanic convulsions, seismic upheavals. What it will ultimately be transformed to,-whether what will emerge at the last will be a new and nobler order or a heap of dust,-who can prophesy? II'! an an.cient Hebrew scripture a prophet tells how in HZ 4 The Making 0/ Modern India a vision he saw a valley filled with dead men's bones, bleached and dry.