15 FEBRUARY 1930, Page 15

[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]

Sth,--Your correspondent who signs himself " A Hindu " has done a good service in raising the question whether India can or cannot rightly be described as a nation, because it is the criticism most frequently brought up against all those who speak of " the Indians " in general, or of " the people of India," that Indians forth no unity. I have in the last few weeks received correction from various quarters because I used such a mode of speaking in my little book.

It therefore seems to me very important to get clearly stated what is the truth of the matter. " Indians differ from each other," these critics say, " as much as a Swede differs from an Italian : the analogy of India is not any one European nation, but Europe as a whole." This, I think, is true, but the critics forget that Europe is a unity, in culture. There is such a thing as a common European culture ; in a sense Dante and Shakespeare and Pascal and Goethe belong to us all. If an Englishman, a Frenchman and an Italian find themselves together in the middle of China, they feel that they represent one particular body of ideas and conventions, as against the surrounding Chinese.

In precisely the same way India is a unity : there is such a thing as a common Indian culture, in spite of all variations of North and South ; for what your Hindu correspondent calls " dharma " is very much what we mean by " culture." " Ah," the critics reply, " that is all very well, but Europe's cultural unity does not make Europe politically one, and there is similarly no reason why India's common dharma should mean political unity ; it is political unity we are now talking about."

Your Hindu correspondent does not perhaps realize that his argument leaves his opponent still the opportunity of that riposte. I think the answer is that one factor makes a great difference in India—the British government. So far as Indians desire swaraj, the existing government gives them everywhere a common object to push against. Supposing Europe were being governed by Chinese, all we Europeans should be much more acutely conscious of the things which unite us, and less conscious of the things that divide us. Very likely, we should then talk about " the people of Europe " more than about " the British people, "and think of Europe, freed from the Chinese, as forming one State. As a matter of fact, it is probable that, when the Chinese were removed, Europe would fall again into a number of different national States, and it is probable that the same thing would happen in India, if the British were removed. But that might be really an advantage both for Europe and for India, provided always that a League of Nations, or any other device, could secure that the separate existence of the different peoples did not mean antagonism between them, and did not expose them dangerously to attack from without.

In the matter of language, your Hindu correspondent deals, I think, too airily with the minority who speak Dravidian languages. A minority they are, but a very large minority— some 43,631,000 people. And the Northern Indians are, linguistically, more akin to us than to the Dravidian peoples, whose languages do not belong to the " Indo-European " family at all. The Northern Indians and we still at any rate call our mothers by the old word (meters, mother) used by our common Wiro ancestors who were wandering about the world some fifty centuries ago.—I am, Sir, &c., EDWYN BEVAN.