The Modern Review/Volume 29/Number 6/East and West in Greater India
THE MODERN REVIEW
No. 6
No. 174
EAST AND WEST IN GREATER INDIA
By Rabindranath Tagore
(Specially translated for the Modern Review)
Date of Original — 1909-10
The History of India,— of whom is it the History?
This history began with the day when the white-skinned Aryans, overcoming all obstacles, natural as well as human, made their entry into India. Sweeping aside the vast enveloping curtain of forest, which stretched across her from East to West, they brought on the scene sunny fields adorned with corn and fruit, and then toil and skill thus laid the foundation. And yet they could not say that this India was exclusively their India.
The non-Aryans became fused with the Aryans. Even in the first blush of the latter’s victorious supremacy, they used to take to themselves non-Aryan girls in marriage. And in the Buddhist age such intermingling became freer. And then, thereafter, the Brahminic Samaj set to work to repair its barriers and make its encircling walls impregnable, they found some parts of the country come to such a pass that brahmins of sufficiently pure stock could not be found to conduct the vedic ceremonies, and these either had to be imported, or new creations made by investiture with the sacred thread. The white skin, on the colour of which the difference between Brahmin and Sudra had originally been founded, had meanwhile tarnished into brown. The sudras, with their different manners and ideals, gods and rituals, had been taken into the social polity. And a larger Indian, or Hindu, Samaj had been evolved which not only was not one with the Aryan Samaj of the vedic times, but in many respects even antagonistic.
But was India able to draw the line of her history there? Did Providence allow her to make the assertion that the History of India was the history of the Hindus? No! For, while in Hindu India the Rajputs were busy fighting each other in the vanity of a suicidal competition of bravery, the Mussalmans swept in through the breaches created by their dissensions, and scattering themselves all over the country they also made it then own by living and dying on its soil.
If now we try to draw the line here crying “Stop! Enough! Let us make the History of India a history of Hindu and Muslim!” will the Great Architect, who is broadening out the history of humanity in ever-increasing circles, modify his plans simply to gratify our pride?
Whether India is to be yours or mine, whether it is to belong more to the Hindu, or to the Moslem, or whether some other race is to assert a greater supremacy than either,—that is not the problem with which Providence is exercised. It is not as if, at the bar of the judgment seat of the Almighty, different advocates are engaged in pleading the rival causes of Hindu, Moslem or Westerner, and that the party which wins the decree shall finally plant the standard of permanent possession. It is our vanity which makes us think that it is a battle between contending rights,—the only battle is the eternal one between Truth and untruth.
The Ultimate, the Perfect, is concerned with the All, and is evolving itself through every kind of obstacle and opposing force. Only to the extent that our efforts assist in the progress of this evolution can they be successful? Attempts to push on oneself alone, whether made by individuals or nations, have no importance in the processes of Providence. That Alexander did not succeed in bringing the whole earth under the flag of Greece was merely a case of unsatisfied ambition which has long ceased to be of concern to the world. The preparation of Rome for a world-empire was shattered to pieces by the Barbarians, but this fall of Rome’s pride is not bewailed by the world to-day. Greece and Rome shipped their golden harvests on the bark of time,—their failure to get a passage on it, for themselves as well, proved no loss, but rather lightened its burden.
So, in the evolving History of India, the principle at work is not the ultimate glorification of the Hindu, or any other race. In India, the history of humanity is seeking to elaborate a specific ideal, to give to general perfection a special form which shall be for the gain of all humanity,—nothing less than this is its end and aim. And in the creation of this ideal type, if Hindu, Moslem or Christian should have to submerge the aggressive part of their individuality, that may hurt their sectarian pride, but will not be accounted a loss by the standard of Truth and Right.
We are all here as factors in the making of the History of Greater India. If any one factor should become rebellious and arrogate to itself an undue predominance, that will only interfere with the general progress. The section which is unable or unwilling to adapt itself to the entire scheme, but struggles to keep up a separate existence, will have to drop out and be lost, sooner or later. And the component which, realising its dedication to the ultimate ideal, acknowledges its own individual unimportance, will lose only its pettiness and find permanence for its greatness in that of the whole.
So, for ourselves, we must bear in mind that India is not engaged in recording solely our story, but that it is we who are called upon to take our place in the great Drama, which has India for its stage. If we do not fit ourselves to play our part, it is we who shall have to go. If we stand aloof from the rest, in the pride of past achievement, content with heaping up obstacles around ourselves, God will punish us, either by afflicting us with sorrow unceasing till He has brought us to a level with the rest, or by casting us aside as mere impediments. If we insist on segregating ourselves in our pride of exclusiveness, fondly clinging to the belief that Providence is specially concerned in our own particular development, if we persist in regarding our dharma as ours alone, our institutions as specially fit only for ourselves, our places of worship as requiring to be carefully guarded against all incomers, our wisdom as dependent for its safety on being locked up in our strong rooms, then we shall simply await, in the prison of our own contriving, for the execution of the death sentence, which in that case the world of humanity will surely pronounce against us.
Of late the British have come in and occupied an important place in India’s history. This was not an uncalled for, accidental intrusion. If India had been deprived of touch with the West, she would have lacked an element essential for her attainment of perfection. Europe now has her lamp ablaze. We must light our torches at its wick and make a fresh start on the highway of time. That our forefathers, three thousand years ago, had finished extracting all that was of value from the universe, is not a worthy thought. We are not so unfortunate, nor the universe so poor. Had it been true that all that is to be done has been done in the past, once for all, then our continued existence could only be a burden to the earth, and so would not be possible. With what present duty, in what future hope, can they live who imagine that they have attained completeness in their great grand-fathers and whose sole idea is to shield themselves against the influx of the Modern behind the barriers of antiquated belief and custom?
The Englishman has come through the breach in our crumbling walls, as the messenger of the Lord of the world-festival, to tell us that the world has need of us, not where we are petty, but where we can help with the force of our Life, to rouse the World in wisdom, love and work, in the expansion of insight, knowledge and mutuality. Unless we can justify the mission on which the Englishman has been sent, until we can set out with him to honour the invitation of which he is the bearer, he cannot but remain with us as our tormentor, the disturber of our quietism. So long as we fail to make good the arrival of the Englishman, it shall not be within our power to get rid of him.
The India to which the Englishman has come with his message, is the India which is shooting up towards the future from within the bursting seed of the past. This new India belongs to humanity. What right have we to say who shall and who shall not find a place therein? Who is this “We”? Bengali, Marathi or Panjabi, Hindu or Mussalman? Only the larger “We” in whom all these,— Hindu, Moslem and Englishman, and whosoever else there be,— may eventually unite, shall have the right to dictate who is to remain and who is to leave.
On us to-day is thrown the responsibility of building up this greater India, and for that purpose our immediate duty is to justify our meeting with the Englishman. It shall not be permitted to us to say that we would rather remain aloof, inactive, unresponsive, unwilling to give and to take, and thus to make poorer the India that is to be.
So the greatest men of modern India have all made it their life’s work to bring about an approachment with the West. The chief example is Rammohun Roy. He stood alone in his day for the union of India with the world on the broad base of humanity. No blind belief, no ancestral habit was allowed to obscure his vision. With a wonderful breadth of heart and intellect he accepted the West without betraying the East. He, alone, laid the foundation of new Bengal.
Rammohan Roy cheerfully put up with persecution in order to extend the field of our knowledge and work, right across from East to West, to gain for us the eternal rights of man in the pursuit of Truth, to enable us to realise that we, also, had inherited the earth. It was he who first felt and declared that for us Buddha, Christ and Mohammed have spent their lives; that for each one of us has been stored up the fruits of the discipline of our Rishis; that in whatsoever part of the world whosoever has removed obstacles in the path of wisdom or, breaking the bondage of dead matter, has given freedom to man’s true shakti, he is our very own, and through him is each one of us glorified.
Rammohan Roy did not assist India to repair her barriers, or to keep cowering behind them,— he led her out into the freedom of Space and Time, and built for her a bridge between the East and West. That is why his spirit still lives with us, his power of stimulating India’s creative energies is not yet exhausted. No blind habit of mind, no pettiness of racial pride, were able to make him commit the folly of rebellion against the manifest purpose of Time. That grand purpose which could not have found its fulfilment in the past, but is ever marching onwards to the future, found in him a gallant, unflinching standard bearer.
In the Deccan, Ranade spent his life in the making of this same bridge between East and West. In his very nature there was that creative faculty of synthesis which brings men together, builds up the Samaj, does away with discord and inequity and circumvents all obstacles in the way of knowledge, love and will-power. And so he rose superior to all the petty or unworthy considerations prevalent in his time, in spite of all the various conflicts of ideas and interests between the Indian and the Englishman. His largeness of heart and breadth of mind impelled him to make a life-long endeavour to clear the way for an acceptance of whatever elements in the British are of value for the true History of India, and to strive for the removal of whatever obstructions stand in the way of India’s attainment of perfection.
And the mahatma who passed away from us only the other day — Swami Vivekananda — he too took his stand in middle, with the East on his right, the West on his left. His message was not to keep India bound in her latter-day narrowness by ignoring in her history the advent of the West. His genius was for assimilation, for harmony, for creation. He dedicated his life to opening up the royal road by which the thought-treasure of the East may pass to the West, and of the West to the East.
Then there was the day when Bankimchandra invited both East and West to a veritable festival of union in the pages of his Bangadarshan. From that day the literature of Bengal felt the call of time, responded to it, and having thus justified herself, took her place on the road to immortality. Bengali literature has made such wonderful progress because she cut through all the artificial bonds which would have hampered her communion with the World literature, and regulated her growth in such wise as to be enabled to make her own, naturally and with ease, the science and ideals of the West. Bankim is great, not merely by what he wrote, but because his genius helped to pave the way for such growth.
Thus, from whatever view-point we take a survey, we see that the epoch-makers of modern India, in whom the greatness of man becomes manifest, are gifted, as the very essence of their nature, with that breadth of understanding in which the differences of East and West do not hurt, or conflict with, one another, but where both find their ultimate harmony.
Many of us who belong to the educated class, think that these attempts at union of the different races belonging to India are for the purpose of gaining political strength. Thus, as in so many other cases, do we view the Great as subservient to the Small. That we in India should attain Unity, is a much greater thing than any particular purpose which our union may serve,—for it is a function of our humanity itself. That we are not succeeding in becoming united is due to some basic defect in our manhood, which also is the reason why on every side we perceive our lack of shakti. It is our own sin that destroys our dharma, which again makes for the destruction of everything else.
Our attempts at Union can only become successful when they are made from the standpoint of Righteousness, which cannot be brought within the confines of any petty pride or narrow expediency. And if Righteousness be our guiding principle these efforts will not remain restricted to the different classes of Indians alone, but the Englishman also needs must join hands in the good work.
What then are we to make of the antagonism which has arisen of late between the Englishman and the Indian, educated as well as uneducated? Is there nothing true in this? Is it only the machination of a few conspirators? Is this antagonism essentially different in purpose from the constant action and reaction of making and breaking which are at work in the making of Indian History? It is very necessary for us to come to a true understanding of its meaning.
In our religious literature, opposition is reckoned as one of the means of union. Ravana, for instance, is said to have gained his salvation because of the valiant fight that he fought. The meaning is simply this, that to have to own defeat after a manful contest wnth the truth is to gain it all the more completely. To accept with a too ready acquiescence is not a full acceptance at all. This is why all science is based on a severe scepticism.
We began with a blind, foolish, insensate begging at the door of Europe, with our critical sense entirely benumbed. That was not the way to make any real gain. Whether it be wisdom, or political rights, they have to be earned, that is to say, to be attained by one’s own shakti, after a successful struggle against obstructing forces. It they be put into our hands by others, by way of alms, they do not become ours at all. To take in a form which is derogatory can only lead to loss. Hence our reaction against the culture of Europe and its ideals. A feeling of wounded self-respect is prompting us to return upon ourselves.
This revulsion was necessary for the purposes of the History which, as I say, Time is evolving in this land of India. Of what we were receiving weakly, unquestioningly, in sheer poverty of spirit, it was not possible for us to appraise the value, therefore we were unable to appropriate it at its worth, and so to put it to use. It remained with us merely as an ornamental appendage. And when we realised this, our desire to get away from it was only natural.
Rammohan Roy was able to assimilate the ideals of Europe so completely because he was not overwhelmed by them; there was no poverty or weakness on his side. He had ground of his own on which he could take his stand and where he could secure his acquisitions. The true wealth of India was not hidden from him, and and this he had already made his own. Consequently he had with him the touchstone by which he could test the wealth of others. He did not sell himself by holding out a beggar’s palms, but assessed the true value of whatever he took.
This shakti which was natural to our first great leader, is steadily developing itself amongst us through constantly conflicting stresses and strains, actions and reactions. Pendulum-wise do our movements touch now this extreme, now the other. An undue eagerness of acceptance and an undue timidity of rejection assail us by turns. Nevertheless are we being carried forward to our goal.
Our soul which was overburdened with uncritically accumulated foreign ideas has now swung to the opposite extreme of wholesale rejection. But the cause of the present tension of feelings is not this alone.
The West has come as India’s guest, we cannot send away the visitor while the object of his visit remains unfulfilled, he must be properly accomodated. But, whatever be the reason,—whether it be some defect in our power of appreciation, or the miserliness of the West in revealing itself in its truth,—if the flow of this great purpose of Time should receive a check, there is bound to be a disastrous irruption. If we do not come into touch with what is true, what is best in the Englishman, if we find in him merely a merchant, or a militarv man, or a bureaucrat, if he will not come down to the plane in which man may commune with man and take him into confidence, — if, in fine, the Indian and the Englishman needs must remain apart, then will they be to each other a perennial source of unhappiness. In such case the party which is in power will try to make powerless the dissatisfaction of the weaker by repressive legislation, but will not be able to allay it. Nor will the former find any satisfaction in the situation, and feeling the Indian only to be a source of trouble the Englishman will more and more try to ignore his very existence.
There was a time when high-souled Englishmen like David Hare came very near to us and held up before our hearts the greatness of the English character. The students of that day truly and freely surrendered their hearts to the British connexion. The English professor of to-day not only does not succeed in exhibiting the best that is in his race to his pupils, but he lowers the English ideal in their eyes. As the result, the students cannot enter into the spirit of English literature as they used to do. They gulp it down but do not relish it, and we see no longer the same enthusiastic revelling in the delights of Shakespeare or Byron. The approachment which might have resulted from a genuine appreciation of the same literature has thus received a set-back.
This is not only the case in the sphere of education. In no capacity, be it as magistrate, merchant, or policeman, does the Englishman present to us the highest that his racial culture has attained, and so is India deprived of the greatest gain that might have been hers by reason of his arrival, on the contrary, her self-respect is wounded and her powers deprived on every side of their natural development.
All the trouble that we see now-a-days is caused by this failure of East and West to come together. Bound to be near each other, and yet unable to be friends, is an intolerable situation between man and man, and hurtful withal. Therefore the desire to put an end to it must become overwhelming sooner or later. Such a rebellion, being a rebellion of the heart, will not take account of material gains or losses, it will even risk death.
And yet it is also true that such rebelliousness can only be a temporary phase. In spite of all retarding factors our impact with the West must be made good,— there can be no escape for India until she has made her own whatever there may be worth the taking from the West. Until the fruit is ripe it does not get released from stem, nor can it ripen at all if it insists on untimely release.
Before concluding I must say one word more. It is we who are responsible for the failure of the Englishman to give us of his best. If we remove our own poverty we can make him overcome his miserliness. We must rouse our powers in every direction before the Englishman shall be able to give what he has been sent here to give. If we are content to stand at his door empty-handed we shall only be turned away, again and again.
The best that is in the Englishman is not a thing that may be acquired by us in slothful ease, it must be strenuously won. If the Englishman should be moved to pity that would be the worst thing for us. It is our manhood which must awaken his. We should remember that the Englishman himself has had to realise his best through supreme toil and suffering. We must cultivate the like power within ourselves. There is no easier wav of gaining the Best.
Those of us who go to the Englishman’s durbar with bowed heads and folded hands, seeking emoluments of office or badges of honour,— we only attract his pettiness and help to distort his true manifestation in India. Those, again, who in a blind fury of passion would violently assail him, succeed in evoking only the sinful side of the Englishman’s nature. If, then, it be true that it is our frailty which excites his insolence, his greed, his cowardice or his cruelty, why blame him? Rather should we take the blame on ourselves.
In his own country the Englishman’s lower nature is kept under control and his higher nature roused to its fullest capacity by the social forces around him. The social conscience there, being awake, compels each individual, with all its force, to take his stand on a high level and maintain his place there with unceasing effort. In this country his society is unable to perform the same function. Anglo-Indian society is not concerned with the whole Englishman. It is either a society of civilians, or of merchants, or of soldiers. Each of these are limited by their own business, and become encased in a hard crust of prejudice and superstition. So they develop into thoroughgoing civilians, or mere merchants, or blatant soldiers. We cannot find the man in them. When the civilian occupies the High-Court bench we are in despair, for whenever there is a conflict between the Right and the civilian’s gods, the latter are sure to prevail,— but these gods are inimical to India, nor are they worshipped by the Englishman at his best.
On the other hand, the decay and weakness of the Indian Samaj itself is also a bar to the rousing of the true British spirit, wherefore both are losers. It is our own fault, I repeat, that we meet only Burra Sahebs and not great Englishmen. And to this we owe all the sufferings and insults with which we have to put up. We have no remedy but to acknowledge our sin and get rid of it.
Nayamatma balahinena labhyah,
Self-realisation is not for the weak,—nor the highest truth.
Neither tall talk nor violence, but only sacrifice and service are true tests of strength. Until the Indian can give up his fear, his self-interest, his luxury, in his quest for the best and the highest, in his service of the Motherland, our demanding from the government will but be empty begging and will aggravate both our incapacity and our humiliation. When we shall have made our country our own by sacrifice and established our claim to it by applying our own powers for its reclamation, then we shall not need to stand abjectly at the Englishman’s door. And if we are not abject, the Englishman need not lower himself. Then may we become colleagues and enter into mutual arrangements.
Until we can cast off our individual or samajic folly, as long as we remain unable to grant to our own countrymen the full rights of man, as long as our zamindars continue to look on their tenantry as part of their property, our men in power glory in keeping their subordinates under their heels, our higher castes think nothing of looking down on the lowest castes as worse than beasts; so long shall we not have the right or power to demand from the Englishman proper behaviour towards ourselves.
At every turn,—in her religion, in her Samaj in her daily practice—does the India of to-day fail to do justice to herself. She does not purify her soul by sacrifice, and so on every side she suffers futility. She cannot meet the outsider on equal terms and so receives nothing of value from him. No cleverness or violence can deliver her from the sufferings and insults of which the Englishman is but the instrument. Only when she can meet him as his equal, will all reason for antagonism, and with it all conflict, disappear. Then will East and West unite in India,—country with country, race with race, knowledge with knowledge, endeavour with endeavour. Then will the History of India come to an end, merged in the History of the World which will begin.
Free translation by
Surendranath Tagore