These are critical times no less for India than for the rest of the world. The fate of many future-centuries may be influenced by the attitude we take at the present juncture. All peaceful progress de-pends very much on the ability, of the people to stand out boldly for correct ideals. It is the duty of the intellectuals and the leaders of society to formulate the ideals unequivocally and popularise them among their followers, so that they may give their support, at the _proper time, to constitutional measures intended to safeguard their rights. Every Indian should ask himself what he is fighting for and arrive at a clear conception of the rights he wants to acquire, not only for the nation as a whole, but also in an equal measure for the individuals who constitute the nation.
The present struggle in India between the rulers and the ruled derives its strongest support from the economic sufferings of the country which have hit the educated classes more than the others. India is being fleeced for the profit of people in other countries; her lifeblood is being, drained; as we look on the country is steadily heading towards a catastrophe; its vitality is sinking lower and lower. Just a few educated people who have made a study of the problem realise the gravity of the danger. The problem is so subtle that a larger majority of the English educated youths themselves have hardly any correct notion of the many ways in which the people are being economically crushed. The masses cannot understand the situation, even if an expert explains the facts to them for days together. But the effects of the economic exploitation are being increasingly felt by all’, the discontent and sufferings are on the increase, the uncertainty of livelihood is becoming a nightmare to most people. Only their traditional capacity to live on the lowest scale, to be satisfied with the barest minimum that will keep body and soul together, has enabled them to endure this process of exhaustion so long. The political struggle for India’s freedom is being dominated by the economic motive. The politically-conscious people are the worst sufferers and feel the pinch of poverty more than others. Many of the political malcontents have no other motive than improvement of the economic condition. They believe that Swaraj will give better opportunities to earn wealth and lead a decent life. They are no doubt right in their own way. Some of them have begun to proclaim it as a political gospel that the economic prosperity of the people is the whole and only aim of all politics and government. They redu6e life to an economic problem and hope to solve that problem, and other problems if any, by economic legislation and economic planning. They say there is only one disease in India and in the world at large—the disease of capitalism or economic exploitation of individuals by other individuals and nations by other nations. Very often these enthusiasts go under the name of “Socialists.”
But many Indian- Socialists appear to be as fanatical and unpractical as Hindu Vedantins. They talk big things which humanity cannot hope to realise under any conceivable circumstances. A theoretical or philosophical possibility is not always a safe guide to go by in practical affairs. Hindu Vedantins are never tired of preaching about the unique greatness of Hindu philosophy and religion 71nd culture. They grow eloquent and proclaim from the house-tops that Vedanta alone can save the world and civilisation. Whatever be its meta-physical value, we know as a grim truth of past history and present reality that it has not saved India, it has not saved the Hindus. It has not during any known period of history prevented the Hindus from committing the sins, horrors, and oppressions which other people in similar circumstances have committed in other parts of the world. It has not helped the Hindus, generally speaking, to develop in actual social existence any .higher standard of happiness and freedom than other nations. In modern times, the Hindus have not exhibited any extraordinary capacity to cultivate in actual practice virtues and ideals superior to those of other peoples. On the other hand, they have in some vital directions ignominiously failed to move with the time-spirit, to prove themselves true to their own professed culture or to the aspirations of modern civilisation. No other people have shown greater tenacity in clinging to ancient abominations than the Hindus. No other people deny justice and humanity to their own kith and kin, their own co-religionists and compatriots, without rhyme or reason as the Hindus do even to-day. No doubt there is the excuse that India was in chains and could not shape her own destiny. There is much truth in
it; but there is also the other side of the truth, that India was in chains because of her vices and sins. Socialism if worked in its true spirit, not only in the economic field but in all spheres of life, in the spirit of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of Man as Tolstoy, the father of Socialism in Russia so passionately preached, would, no doubt, go a long way to give us peace and prosperity. But the purely economic Socialism which some of our countrymen seem to dream of, is no more going to be a panacea than any of the panaceas advertised by quacks. True Socialism is a culture, a religion. It cannot be attained by mere-external adjustments atone. It is a faith to be propagated and cultivated untilpeople are able to appreciate it and cling to it as they cling to their religion. It is a scheme and philosophy of life, mental, moral and intellectual, no less than economic, social and political. It involves a revolutionary change of our entire conception of the life of the individual as well as of society. Its success ultimately depends on the moral conversion of the people to its doctrines., We are not here concerned with the question whether the conversion is to come first or whether it may be left to follow as a result of the actual experience of the benefits of enforced Socialism. Theoretically it may be either way. But we believe that in a country steeped in a hoary culture and enslaved by immemorial traditions, customs and institutions which are a negation of even the elementary notions of Socialism, nay of human freedom and dignity itself, we require a good deal of mental preparation and preliminary training before the people can be trusted to be true to the ideals which their leaders propound.
The leaders themselves cannot expect their followers to take them at their word. India has seen more saints and reformers and teachers than any other country ; India has a more magnificent heritage of noble sentiments and speculations than other nations. These have not saved her. The Hindu peoples led by the noose by their native exploiters and priests have preferred the path of national suicide in spite of their teachers and teachings. The Socialists and leaders of to-day who talk noble sentiments without taking the responsibility to educate the people to adjust their lives to the new ideas, or without doing what can be reasonably done here and now for removing the worst anomalies of the country’s life, will prove no exception to the old rule. Their assurances will avail nothing so long as lasses, more than the Hindu masses, nay the masses, are steeped in the culture of caste and the religion of deception and exploitation. Even our foremost Socialists have not had the courage to tell the people that these abominations must go if they should have true freedom. On the other hand many of them even think and assure us that Socialism has nothing to do with Hindu customs and beliefs, which will remain intact even after Swaraj. Others are inventing new ways and justifications to preserve these diabolical distinctions and insults in the name of the sanctity of religion, division of labour. economic planning, value of heredity in economics, and other shibboleths of capitalistic philosophy and yet holding themselves out as Socialists and Nationalists.
There is another set of distinguished National-ists to whom “our unique culture” is everything the unique culture of Bengal, the Punjab, the Maharashtra, the Andhras, the Tamils, the Kerala and so forth. God alone knows wherein lies the uniqueness and glory except it be in the castes and their disastrous ramifications. In the ultimate analysis, this separate culture will be found to consist of exclusiveness in marriage, in eating and drinking, in the superstitions and customs, which divide one people from another and help them to organise distinct groups for mutual exploitation at the sacrifice of national unity and freedom. The country may well cry: Save us from Nationalism if its aim is to give a new lease of life to the culture which is steadily suffocating us and trampling under foot all our natural aspirations for a manly existence. When we scrutinise’ the situation carefully, a good number of our Socialists and Nationalists will turn out to be rank Capitalists and fanatical Communal-, fists. They cannot be otherwise, born and brought ,up as they are in the atmosphere of Hindu Imperial-_ ism, inured to the slavery of caste and the untruths of priestcraft.
Leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru are taking too much for granted if they believe that the country will be non-violent, will liberate the Hari fans, recognise the equality of. man by birth, stop the cut-throat economic exploitation, and establish comradeship with other religions and nations in the interest of humanity when it gets Swaraj. Little has been clone to educate the people to these ends. Taking into consideration the extraordinary faith of the people in Mahatma ‘Gandhi and the critical times in which we are living and which ought to call forth our willing sacrifices, it cannot be said that his appeal for Harijan emancipation, opening of the temples, Hindu-Muslim unity, adoption of Khaddar and spinning and Hindi, has met with a satisfactory response from the people. ‘There was some effervescent enthusiasm when the fate of the country seemed to hang in the balance. ‘There was a temporary’ response by a small minority when great hopes were in the air and large sums were available for propaganda. The constructive nation-building programmes have made only very
slight progress. The weakest point of our national life is seen in the tragic failure of the various .attempts so far made for Hindu unity.
An urgent need of the day is to get rid of the notion that we are a unique people, a peculiar type of humanity distinct from the rest of mankind. The similar philosophers propounded a similar philosophy regarding the German people. Herr Hitler has devastated Europe because he felt that he was a divinely ordained person with a mission to lead the unique German race to world domination. Just as Hitler stopped at nothing, did not hesitate to adopt the most brutal methods to achieve his objects, people who think their so-called culture to be unique will, when they get power, use all means to preserve-and propagate the injustices and atrocities which are masqueraded in the name of that culture. Give the Hindus independence and the necessary power, they will be as violent as imperialistic, and as aggressive-as other people, and in addition will do their utmost to pr.opagate their caste culture and priestcraff, as-“the unique Hindu civilisation.” All the arguments of the Bhagavad. Gita and other sacred books will be used to justify bloody wars and the suppression of human rights. An independent and powerful Hindu
India clinging to its caste culture will be a menace & civilisation and world peace. The sooner we realize the truth that we are like other peoples of the world in all essential respects, the better it will be for us and the world.
Our national life is not different from that of other nations. We are moved by the same emotions,. aspirations, ideals and theories. We have adopted similar methods of organising life in various aspects.. We have used and misused our powers and resources exactly like other men in other countries. We are closely following the example of modern nations in science, religion, economics, industry, politics, and all other departments of life, in our virtues as well as in our vices, but unfortunately much more in the latter than in the former. What we want is not a unique, separatist attitude. Let us realise that we are only a part of a single humanity and have in all essentials to think and live alike, and be guided by the same principles in religion as in politics. No doubt we may be able to make our special contribution to world happiness, but the less we prattle and boast about what we are not actually doing the better. When we have done it, or are fairly on the way to do it we may claim the world’s attention. But now our uniqueness is no better than the uniqueness of Ravana or Hitler—it is a uniqueness in unrighteousness and untruth, in caste and priestcraft, in the contradictions of life and religion, in the suppression ,of the most sacred human feelings and the persecution of our fellow-beings.
There is little profit in parading the teachings of the ancient Rishis as representing our plan of Swaraj when century after century we have defied them in
organisation of life with harder hearts than the ancient Jews who crucified Christ. In spite of their awful failure the younger nations of the West seem to have made a more honest and earnest attempt to realise the teachings of Vedanta and all true religions than the self-conceited Hindu masters have ever done. The latter are even now openly defying in the name of the highest truths of religion and science, all attempts to restore to the Hindu peoples their natural human dignity and check the system of rank deception and exploitation which keep them hypnotised and enslaved to their castes and priests. The present .generation of Hindus has hardly anything to justify the superior airs which some of them assume when they talk of Hindu culture. As Sir P. C. Ray said “Hinduism is only tolerant and catholic in mere empty words. In actual life it is rigid, cruel and repulsive.” Even saints and prophets like Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore are in reality out-castes to the mentality of the orthodox Hindu majority. They would disown them if their traditional life were touched. The claim of superior culture is an utterly false imposture and a clever manoeuvre, with the help of ancient books and theories, intended to conceal the hideousness of Hindu life and the brutality of its caste masters. We must stop this bluster. Let us make ourselves at least as decent as other civilised peoples before we Plume ourselves on our achievements. The risk of a revival of Brahman Imperialism in a disguised formal is too serious to be ignored. The-immensity of the danger that threatens the Hindus. may be imagined when we remember that ‘even Mahatma Gandhi, when he started the Khilafat agitation, openly confessed that he was one of those who believed that caste was a good institution. He has changed; but the other Hindu leaders have not, at any rate a large number of them have not. The President of the All-India Varnashrama Swarajya Sangh speaking at a public meeting in Kumbhakonam denounced Sarajya without caste as a body without soul (Madras. Mail, 22nd May, 1940). He is but one of the thousands of Hindu leaders who hold that “caste’ is the soul of Hinduism. Brahman sophists like Sir S. Radbakrishnan who, as becomes a philosopher, discourses on the ideal view of caste, of the division into four Varnas and justifies it on the ground that “it illustrates the spirit of comprehensive synthesis characteristic of the Hindu mind with its faith in the collaboration of races and the co-operation of cultures,” although “In all the known periods of Indian history after the system of caste had come into existence, it has been an instrument of intolerance and oppression* . .” dominate Hindu life all over the country and keep.it moored to its ancient exploitations. In subjection to a foreign ruler the Hindus feel at least the comradeship of common thraldom. Under Swaraj the Hindus may be split up into numerous irreconcilable groups; caste imperialism may triumph; the disunion of the Hindus may be exploited by the Muhammadans. Hindu imperialists who think caste to be the soul of Hinduism may join hands with the Muslims or foreign invaders against their fellow Hindus and again impose upon the Hindu masses the yoke of caste slavery which has brought the whole nation to its present degradation. Freedom with caste is a mockery. The Hindu masses who are but pawns in the hands of their caste masters will be safer in subjection to a foreign rule than under the free -domain of the superior castes.
Any imperialism is more endurable than caste -domination. It is this truth we have to recognize and proclaim. There can be no compromise on this -point. The Hindu nation must decide whether it will have “caste” or Swaraj—the two cannot co-exist. The Hindu masses must be on their guard against Caste-Raj being- re-established in the name -of Swaraj. Their own leaders and priests have betrayed them time after time in the past. Those who betrayed them are even now in power, in the Congress and Socialist movements, in the temples, in the villages and in the favour of the rulers. They have not shown any change of heart. The Hindu masses who want real freedom, who want to be as -free in Hindu society as the Muslims and the Christians are free in their respective communities, should with one voice raise the cry—”No Freedom with Caste.” Let everyone who dares to demand Swaraj or independence for India publicly pledge himself to root out caste. It should be clearly impressed on all liberty-loving Hindus and Indian -Nationalists that the nation cannot have independence and yet deny freedom and equality to its Hindu subjects. The revival of Caste-Raj in any form is the greatest menace of the present crisis which all’ liberty-loving people, Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims and -Christians, should unite in combating.
