Indian Home Rule (5th edition)/Appendices

by Mohandas K. Gandhi

Appendices:

Some Authorities.

Testimonies by Eminent Men.

Appendices.

Some Authorities.

The following books are recommended for perusal to follow up the study of the foregoing:—

• "The Kingdom of God is Within You"—Tolstoy.
• "What is Art?"—Tolstoy.
• "Slavery of Our Times"—Tolstoy.
• "The First Step"—Tolstoy.
• "How Shall We Escape"—Tolstoy.
• "Letter to a Hindoo"—Tolstoy.
• "The White Slaves of England"—Sherard.
• "Civilization: Its Cause and Cure"—Carpenter.
• "The Fallacy of Speed"—Taylor.
• "A New Crusade"—Blount.
• "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience"—Thoreau.
• "Life Without Principle"—Thoreau.
• "Unto This Last"—Ruskin. "A Joy for Ever"—Ruskin.
• "Duties of Man"—Mazzini.
• "Defence and Death of Socrates"—From Plato.
• "Paradoxes of Civilization"—Max Nordau.
• "Poverty and Un-British Rule in India"—Naoroji.
• "Economic History of India"—Dutt.
• "Village Communities"—Maine.

Testimonies by Eminent Men

The following extracts from Mr. Alfred Webb's valuable collection, if the testimony given therein be true, show that the ancient Indian civilization has little to learn from the modern:—

Victor Cousin

(1792—1867). Founder of Systematic Electricism in Philosophy.

"On the other hand when we read with attention the poetical and philosophical movements of the East, above all, those of India, which are beginning to spread in Europe, we discover there so many truths, and truths so profound, and which make such a contrast with the meanness of the results at which the European genius has sometimes stopped, that we are constrained to bend the knee before that of the East, and to see in this cradle of the human race the native land of the highest philosophy."

J Seymour Keay, M. P.

Banker in India and India Agent.

(Writing in 1883.)

"It cannot be too well understood that our position in India has never been in any degree that of civilians bringing civilization to savage races. When we landed in India we found there a hoary civilization, which, during the progress of thousands of years, had flitted itself into the character and adjusted itself to the wants of highly intellectual races. The civilization was not prefunctory, but universal and all-pervading—furnishing the country not only with political systems but with social and domestic institutions of the most ramified description. The beneficent nature of these institutions as a whole may be judged of from their effects on the character of the Hindu race. Perhaps there are no other people in the world who show so much in their characters the advantageous effects of their own civilization. They are shrewd in business, acute in reasoning, thrifty, religious, sober, charitable, obedient to parents, reverential to old age, amiable, law-abiding, compassionate towards the helpless, and patient under suffering."

Friedrich Max Muelier, LL.D.

"If I were to ask myself from what literature we hear in Europe, we who have been nurtured almost exclusively on the thoughts of Greeks and Romans, and of one Semetic race, the Jewish may draw that corrective which is most wanted in order to make our inner life more perfect, more comprehensive, more universal, in fact more truly human, a life, not for this life only but a transfigured and eternal life — again I should point to India."

Michael G. Mulhall, F.R.S.S.

Statistics (1899).

Prison population per 100,000 of inhabitants:
	Several European States	…	100 to 230
	England and Wales	…	90
	India	…	38

—"Dictionary of Statistics," Michael G. Mulhall, F.R.S.S., Routledge and Sons, 1899.

Colonel Thomas Munro.

Thirty-two years' service in India.

"If a good system of agriculture, unrivalled manufacturing skill, a capacity to produce whatever can contribute to convenience or luxury; schools established in every village, for teaching, reading, writing and arithmetic; the general practice of hospitality and charity among each other; and, above all, treatment of the female sex, full of confidence, respect and delicacy, are among the signs which denote a civilised people, then the Hindus are not inferior to the nations of Europe; and if civilization is to become an article of trade between the two countries, I am convinced that this country [England] will gain by the import cargo."

Frederick Yon Schlegel.

"It cannot be denied that the early Indians possessed a knowledge of the true God; all their writings are replete with sentiments and expressions noble, clear and severely grand, as deeply conceived and reverently expressed as in any human language in which men have spoken of their God.…………Among nations possessing indigenous philosophy and metaphysics, together with an innate relish for these pursuits, such as at present characterises Germany; and in olden times, was the proud distinction of Greece, Hindustan holds the first rank in point of time."

Sir William Wedderburn, Bart.

"The Indian village has thus for centuries remained a bulwark against political disorder, and the home of the simple domestic and social virtues. No wonder, therefore, that philosophers and historians have always dwelt lovingly on this ancient institution which is the natural social unit and the best type of rural life; self-contained, industrious, peace-loving, conservative in the best sense of the word.…… I think you will agree with me that there is much that is both picturesque and attractive in this glimpse of social and domestic life in an Indian village. It is a harmless and happy form of human existence. Moreover, it is not without good practical outcome."

J. Young.

Secretary, Savon Mechanics' Institutes.

(Within recent years).

"Those races, [the Indian viewed from a moral aspect] are perhaps the most remarkable people in the world. They breathe an atmosphere of moral purity, which cannot but excite admiration, and this is especially the case with the poorer classes who, notwithstanding the privations of their humble lot, appear to be happy and contented. True children of nature, they live on from day to day, taking no thought of to-morrow and thankful for the simplefare which Providence has provided for them. It is curious to witness the spectacle of coolies of both sexes returning home at nightfall after a hard day's work often lasting from sunrise to sunset. In spite of fatigue from the effects of the unremitting toil, they are, for the most part, gay and animated, conversing cheerfully together and occasionally breaking into snatches of light-hearted song. Yet what awaits them on their return to the hovels which they call home? A dish of rice for food, and the floor for a bed. Domestic felicity appears to be the rule among the Natives, and this is the more strange when the customs of marriage are taken into account, parents arranging all such matters. Many Indian households afford examples of the married state in its highest degree of perfection. This may be due to the teachings of the Shastras, and to the strict injunctions which they inculcate with regard to marital obligations; but it is no exaggeration to say that husbands are generally devotedly attached to their wives, and in many instances the latter have the most exalted conception of their duties towards their husbands."

Abbe J. A. Dubois.

Missionary in Mysore. Extracts from letter dated Seringapatam, 15th December, 1820.

"The authority of married women within their houses is chiefly exerted in preserving good order and peace among the persons who compose their families: and a great many among them discharge this important duty with a prudence and a discretion which have scarcely a parallel in Europe. I have known families composed of between thirty and forty persons, or more, consisting of grown-up sons and daughters, all married and all having children, living together under the superintendence of an old matron—their mother or mother-in-law. The latter, by good management, and by accommodating herself to the temper of the daughters-in-law, by using, according to circumstances, firmness or forbearance, succedeed in preserving peace and harmony during many years amongst so many females, who had all jarring interests, and still more jarring tempers. I ask you whetner it would be possible to attain the same end, in the same circumstances, in our countries, where it is scarcely possible to make two women living under the same foot to agree together.

"In fact, there is perhaps no kind of honest employment in a civilised country in which the Hindu females have not a due share. Besides the management of the household, and the care of the family, which (as alread noticed) under their control, the wives and daughters of husbandmen attend and assist their husbands and fathers in the labours of agriculture. Those of tradesmen assist theirs in carrying on their trade. Merchants are attended and assisted by theirs in their shops. Many females are shopkeepers on their own account and without a knowledge of the alphabet or of the decimal scale, they keep by other means their accounts in excellent order, and are considered as still shrewder than the males themselves in their commercial dealings."

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