Part 4 (1/2)
READER: Then you will contend that the Pax Britannica is a useless enc.u.mbrance?
EDITOR: You may see peace if you like; I see none.
READER: You make light of the terror that Thugs, the Pindaris, the Bhils were to the country.
EDITOR: If you will give the matter some thought, you will see that the terror was by no means such a mighty thing. If it had been a very substantial thing, the other people would have died away before the English advent. Moreover, the present peace is only nominal, for by it we have become emasculated and cowardly. We are not to a.s.sume that the English have changed the nature of the Pindaris and the Bhils. It is, therefore, better to suffer the Pindari peril than that some one else should protect us from it, and thus render us effeminate. I should prefer to be killed by the arrow of a Bhil than to seek unmanly protection. India without such protection was an India full of valour.
Macaulay betrayed gross ignorance when he libelled Indians as being practically cowards. They never merited the charge. Cowards living in a country inhabited by hardy mountaineers, infested by wolves and tigers must surely find an early grave. Have you ever visited our fields? I a.s.sure you that our agriculturists sleep fearlessly on their farms even to-day, and the English, you and I would hesitate to sleep where they sleep. Strength lies in absence of fear, not in the quant.i.ty of flesh and muscle we may have on our bodies. Moreover, I must remind you who desire Home Rule that, after all, the Bhils, the Pindaris, the a.s.samese and the Thugs are our own countrymen. To conquer them is your and my work. So long as we fear our own brethren, we are unfit to reach the goal.
CHAPTER IX
THE CONDITION OF INDIA (_Continued_)
RAILWAYS
READER: You have deprived me of the consolation I used to have regarding peace in India.
EDITOR: I have merely given you my opinion on the religious aspect, but when I give you my views as to the poverty of India you will perhaps begin to dislike me, because what you and I have hitherto considered beneficial for India no longer appears to me to be so.
READER: What may that be?
EDITOR: Railways, lawyers and doctors have impoverished the country, so much so that, if we do not wake up in time, we shall be ruined.
READER: I do now indeed fear that we are not likely to agree at all. You are attacking the very inst.i.tutions which we have hitherto considered to be good.
EDITOR: It is necessary to exercise patience. The true inwardness of the evils of civilization you will understand with difficulty. Doctors a.s.sure us that a consumptive clings to life even when he is about to die. Consumption does not produce apparent hurt--it even produces a seductive colour about a patient's face, so as to induce the belief that all is well. Civilization is such a disease, and we have to be very wary.
READER: Very well, then, I shall hear you on the railways.
EDITOR: It must be manifest to you that, but for the railways, the English could not have such a hold on India as they have. The railways, too, have spread the bubonic plague. Without them, ma.s.ses could not move from place to place. They are the carriers of plague germs. Formerly we had natural segregation. Railways have also increased the frequency of famines, because, owing to facility of means of locomotion, people sell out their grain, and it is sent to the dearest markets. People become careless, and so the pressure of famine increases. They accentuate the evil nature of man. Bad men fulfil their evil designs with greater rapidity. The holy places of India have become unholy. Formerly people went to these places with very great difficulty. Generally, therefore, only the real devotees visited such places. Now-a-days, rogues visit them in order to practise their roguery.
READER: You have given an one-sided account. Good men can visit these places as well as bad men. Why do they not take the fullest advantage of the railways?
EDITOR: Good travels at a snail's pace--it can, therefore, have little to do with the railways. Those who want to do good are not selfish, they are not in a hurry, they know that to impregnate people with good requires a long time. But evil has wings. To build a house takes time.
Its destruction takes none. So the railways can become a distributing agency for the evil one only. It may be a debatable matter whether railways spread famines, but it is beyond dispute that they propagate evil.
READER: Be that as it may, all the disadvantages of railways are more than counter-balanced by the fact that it is due to them that we see in India the new spirit of nationalism.
EDITOR: I hold this to be a mistake. The English have taught us that we were not one nation before, and that it will require centuries before we become one nation. This is without foundation. We were one nation before they came to India. One thought inspired us. Our mode of life was the same. It was because we were one nation that they were able to establish one kingdom. Subsequently they divided us.
READER: This requires an explanation.
EDITOR: I do not wish to suggest that because we were one nation we had no differences, but it is submitted that our leading men travelled throughout India either on foot or in bullock-carts. They learned one another's languages, and there was no aloofness between them. What do you think could have been the intention of those far-seeing ancestors of ours who established Shethubindu-Rameshwar in the South, Juggernaut in the South-East and Hardwar in the North as places of pilgrimage? You will admit they were no fools. They knew that wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d could have been performed just as well at home. They taught us that those whose hearts were aglow with righteousness had the Ganges in their own homes.