THE REAL INDIA.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sm,—It is all very well for Lord Sydenham to -call that aspect of Indian life illustrated by your article on Pandharpur (huge crowds absorbed in the observances of their religion, &c.) " the real India," and " the fascinating crowds " who flock to such shrines " the real Indian people," implying— to quote the advertisements—that none other is genuine." But is it so ? In Lord Sydenham's day it may, perhaps, have been so, though- I doubt it. But one of the notes of India to-day is the rapidity with which things are •changing. And, anyhow, I think few impartially-minded residents in India to-day would agree with him. They would, I apprehend, be tempted to apply to such a limitation of " the real India " one of his lordship's adjectives, " misleading." Of course, one understands Lord Sydenham's intention. His purpose is to persuade your readers that Indians affected by the modern spirit are not representative of the essential India and have no claim to be classed among " the real Indian people." They are, in his view, un-Indian. The true India, he holds, is that which is " absorbed in the observances of its religion," the kind of India, in fact, that Mr. Gandhi would fain produce. And, because such an India is easier for us to govern than one touched by the modern spirit he would like to believe that the latter, the more vocal India, is unrepresentative—in the long run, negligible. But is not that rather ostrich-like ?
I most readily agree that the old India, represented by the crowds at Pandharpur and similar places of pilgrimage, is " the real India." But I believe that India touched by the modern spirit is also really " India." In fact, you will find among the pilgrims to-day not a few touched by that spirit. The testimony of missionaries is, I know, often " suspect " ; but, after all, missionaries do, as a rule, know the people of India (each, of course, in a circumscribed area) as well as, if not better than, other Europeans. And I, for one, am con- vinced that it is a mistake to belittle the effect of the modern spirit. And it is a mistake to attribute the permeation of India by the modern spirit to " agitators " alone.
First among the instruments in this permeation has been the Government of India itself. The education it has bene- ficently bestowed upon the people enables ideas from outside to penetrate through the Press to well nigh every part of the peninsula. You will find in remote hamlets men who can read to illiterate groups items in the local paper translated into the vernacular from English, or American, or French, or even Russian publications, and those items being discussed.
The next instrument was the War. We took men from
thousands of such villages and sent them to the various fronts, and now they have returned—returned men of the world, with a very changed view of things, especially a near view (so to speak) of ourselves, white men and women, our formerly unsuspected weaknesses as well as our greatness. These
are authorities and leaders in the village discussions. The cinema is another instrument, tending among other things to cheapen white womanhood. The cinema has most decidedly caught on and -boa lowered the ruling race in the eyes- of
India more, perhaps, than anything else. The contribution of these instruments to the spread of national self-esteem and the nationalistic spirit can be imagined. And there • have been and are other instruments. The greatest was Mr. Gandhi. But these others helped his propaganda and made its penetration possible. I am here thinking only of the spread of the modern spirit among the masses, who form so large a part of Lord Sydenham's " real idea."
I cannot define the modern spirit. In India it works out in unrest, dissatisfaction with the existing order, desire for change, revolt against alien over-rule, a feeling of having been deceived about the invincibility of the over-rulers, an exaggerated awareness of their feet of clay—and per contra (more especially in the higher classes and intelligentsia) an exaggerated sense of Indianism—the nationalistic idea. Every young Englishman in India, too, except the ultra- complacent, finds himself faced, sooner or later, by the question, " What are we here for ? " Did God create India for England ? Does she exist only for our profit, and for our glory to add lustre to our Empire ? These questions must, I think, be faced by all who read articles and letters about
C. M. S. Missionary.
Wilby Rectory, Attleborough.
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