Rien n’est bête que de bouder l’avenir. Anatole France. So sind sie Particularisten von Natur : das nationale Bewusstsein erscheint bei ihnen erst als Erzeugniss der fortschreitenden Bildung. Von Sybel, 1890.
European idea that caste is breaking up.
IT will be seen from the picture imperfectly outlined in the preceding chapters that caste in India is something more than what is called a social system, something beyond a mere mode of grouping the loose atoms of humanity which the wheel of circumstance has created and a turn of the same wheel may destroy or transform. We should rather conceive of it as a congenital instinct, an all-pervading principle of attraction and repulsion entering into and shaping every relation of life. For Hindus caste is bound up with their religion, and its observance is enforced by the authority of the priests ; its influence is conspicuous in the social usages of most Indian Muhammadans ; and it extends even to the relatively small communities of Christians. Thus it forms the cement that holds together the myriad units of Indian society. In the words of Sir K. Sheshadri Iyer, the great Dewan of Mysore, “the whole social fabric of India rests upon caste.” Were its cohesive power withdrawn or its essential ties relaxed, it is difficult to form any idea of the probable consequences. Such a change would be more than a revolution ; it would resemble the withdrawal of some elemental force like gravitation or molecular attraction. Order would vanish and chaos would supervene. Yet we are told from time to time, in tones of settled conviction, that the bonds of caste are being burst asunder by the disruptive force of modern ideas and that the Indian spirit is now about to be liberated from this prison-house of the past Such facile assurances proceed for the most part from philanthropic Englishmen who have seen little of India beyond the Presidency towns, who know none of the vernacular languages, and who derive their impressions from the small body of Anglicized Indians whom Sir Henry Cotton describes, with rather needless acidity, in one place as “a disorganised class within the community,” and in another as “an artificial and exotic product.” *
Founded on misconception of fact.
Let it be admitted, however, that there is some excuse for those who, in their just and natural admiration for the educated Indian, leave out of view the people of India and the governing principle of Indian society—caste. Any one who has the curiosity to glance at the second chapter of this book will see that from the sixteenth century onwards almost all observers have been struck by the prohibitions on food and drink, and the rules about personal contact which caste entails, and have hardly noticed its restrictions upon marriage. Both sets of rules are, of course, inherent in the system. But they do not stand upon the same footing, and the penalties attached to their violation differ widely. A marriage, or even a liaison, with a member of another caste ipso facto involves final and irremediable excommunication. A slip in the matter of food can within limits be expiated by penance. Moreover, the rules about diet and contact with other castes rest upon a metaphysical theory of ceremonial pollution which admits of many exceptions. Ever since the time of Manu it has been recognized that the devout traveller, when in danger of starvation, must pocket his caste scruples and satisfy his hunger as best he can. In modern times, and especially since the introduction of railways, this comfortable doctrine has been developed and elaborated by Brahmanical casuistry. It has long been held, for example, that sweetmeats, a generic and elastic term which includes all the promiscuous messes sold on the railway platforms, may be taken from almost anybody. Nice enquiries about the caste of itinerant vendors of sweetstuff cannot be prosecuted from the window of a third-class carriage during a short stoppage, and a modern proverb sums up the position in the practical query—“You have eaten the food he gave you, why ask about his caste?” On the same principle the wise man finds it convenient to forget that ice was once water, that soda water, before it found its way into a cunningly contrived bottle, owned the same humble origin and did not necessarily come straight from the Ganges; that certain essences and extracts used for medical purposes bear an ascertainable relation to beef, and that imported biscuits must have passed in their making through the hands of all sorts of casteless folk. Nor is he so indiscreet as to enquire at how many paces’ distance his neighbour can convey pollution, when he must in any case rub shoulders with him in a railway carriage for twelve hours on end.
The every-day occurrences which an observant tourist may notice in the course of his cold-weather progress through India manifestly conflict with his preconceived notion of caste as a rigid system of unalterable prohibitions. To people who do not understand all that is implied in the cry of Pāni Pānre, which one hears at each halt of a train in Northern India, the apparent difference between the theory of the guide-book and the practice of the people may well seem marked enough to warrant the belief that English education, modern civilization, the growth of industries, the march of progress, and all the rest of it are making short work of an ancient and famous institution for which the Indian world has no longer any use. Yet what the tourist sees from his railway carriage comprises only the accidents of caste, which may change from year to year as convenience or fashion may dictate. The substance of the system lies hidden from the eye of the globe-trotter (and scarcely perceptible even to those who are not globe-trotters) in the hard and fast rules which regulate marriage. In this department of life, where the fact or fiction of community of blood has continually to be reckoned with, there are no signs of compromise or concession. People must marry within the caste or sub-caste in which they were born, or must take the consequences. Even the most advanced of modern Indians have had occasion to discover that exclusive dealing in husbands is a formidable weapon to use against a family man, and that the frivolous foreigner who defined caste as “a turnpike to matrimony” had, at any rate, hit off an aspect of it which comes home to the father of marriageable daughters. As for the mass of the people, all that they know or care to know is that whoever kicks over the connubial traces is promptly turned out of his caste, and must either become a Muhammadan or must join some dubious sect which offers a sympathetic welcome to persons caught out in sexual delinquencies. The idea that any properly constituted Hindu should wish to marry outside his caste would seem to them too preposterous to be worth discussing. As long as the people think thus, so long will caste endure, whatever philanthropists may say.
Quite apart, moreover, from caste developments many things are happening in the India of to-day which tend to bewilder an observer recently arrived from Europe, and unable to command a wider outlook than is afforded by his own immediate surroundings. It is hardly possible to imagine a more startling series of contrasts than is disclosed directly one penetrates below the mere surface of Indian society. One sees there a sort of disordered kaleidoscope in which the oldest and the newest ideas of the human spirit whirl round together in the most bewildering fashion. Science and religion, expediency and prescription, contract and status, the Western enthusiasm of humanity, the Eastern carelessness of human life—all these mighty opposites are mixed and jumbled up together in a fantastic medley out of which a benevolent despotism, controlled in the last resort by a distant but not unwise democracy, is constantly attempting to evolve an order of things which, while satisfying the comparatively simple wants of oriental life, shall not fall too conspicuously short of European ideals of progress and prosperity. An illustration or two will show at a glance how great a gulf is fixed between the educated minority and the great body of the Indian people, and what savage impulses throb behind the deceptive veil of apparent culture. Not very long ago, while a talented Bengali professor, well known to the scientific world of London, was lecturing to crowded audiences on the transcendental properties of metals under the influence of electricity, widows were being burnt alive in Bihar, incidents curiously suggestive of human sacrifice were occurring in Orissa, and in Calcutta, the soi-disant centre of light and leading, a large section of the population, shrewd enough in the business of daily life, were deterred from going out after dark by their dread of a mysterious personage who was believed to be hunting for heads to cement the foundations of the Victoria Memorial Hall. In the face of such vigorous survivals of ideas far more primitive than caste itself, we may be excused for receiving with some scepticism the argument that because a few archaic taboos on food, drink, and personal contact have been relaxed, therefore the entire fabric of caste, undermined by European science, must be tottering to its fall.
Not shared by Sir Henry Cotton.
Sir Henry Cotton takes a more just view of the general situation when he writes:—
“ The country recoils from such a social revolution as our Western civilisation has thrust upon it. It still needs the hierarchical leadership of caste. The tendency to reduce the power of the dominant classes and to destroy, if possible, all distinction between the different strata of society is much in vogue among headstrong administrators, who are too apt to transplant the radical associations of our democracy into a country altogether unsuited to their growth. But there is no more patrician milieu in the world than that which has for centuries flourished in India and is still vigorous, in spite of attacks upon it.”
“Those reformers who are in the habit of describing caste as the root of all evils in Hindu society overlook the impossibility of uprooting an institution which has taken such a firm hold on the popular mind. They forget that the attempt to abolish caste, if successful, would be attended with the most dangerous consequences, unless some powerful religious influence were brought to bear upon the people in its place. They forget also that caste is still stronger as a social than as a religious institution, and that many a man who has entirely lost his belief in his religion, is zealous and tenacious of his position as a high-caste man, and scrupulously performs all customary rites and ceremonies. Caste is now the framework which knits together Hindu society ; it is the link which maintains the existing religious system of Hinduism in its present order. The problem of the future is not to destroy caste, but to modify it, to preserve its distinctive conceptions, and to gradually place them upon a social instead of a supernatural basis.” *
The late Babu Guru Prasād Sen, a native of Eastern Bengal, who practised as a pleader in Patna, and wrote an instructive little book on Hindu social life, lays equal stress on the necessity of retaining caste unless Indian society is to fall utterly to pieces. He dwells upon its value as the guardian of a proper esprit de corps among the groups to which it gives rise, and notices the wholesome influence which it exercises by maintaining unbroken the traditions of remote ancestry ; by preserving the distinct existence of the Hindu people ; and by enforcing the due subordination of the various parts of society to the whole.
Whose views are confirmed by statistics and by the best Indian opinion.
The opinion held by Sir Henry Cotton and Babu Guru Prasād Sen that caste, so far from being moribund, still maintains its ancient place in the Indian social system, receives striking confirmation from the returns of the last Census. It may be said with confidence that the tendency to rebel against the prescriptions of caste has not spread beyond the relatively small circle of those who, in Mr. Gokhale’s words, “ have come under the influence of some kind of English education.” † Outside those limits caste, with all its restrictions, is regarded as the natural law governing human society. Now the male adults who described themselves in the Census of 1901 as being able to read and write English—a test not necessarily representing a high standard of English education—numbered in the whole of India just 707,000, or less than one per cent. of the male adult population.* Even if the whole of this company of literati, scattered over all the provinces and states of India, were banded together to beleaguer the citadel of caste, many generations must pass before their attack could effect a practicable breach. The walls of immemorial usage will not crumble at the first blast of the trumpet of reform. But how many even of the advanced members of the literate class seriously contemplate the disruption of the social régime under which they live? So far as can be gathered from the various sources of information available, the number of such iconoclasts is extremely small, while their ranks are mainly recruited from among those who, for one reason or another, have become alienated from their own people and have lost touch with Indian society. Nor does English education of itself, at any rate in its present state of development, necessarily incline an Indian patriot to enter upon the uncongenial task of demolishing indigenous institutions and reconstructing them on a foreign model. On the contrary, with the growth of national or provincial self-consciousness which has manifested itself within the last few years, the opposite tendency may be observed, and Indian religion, philosophy, usage, and family life are extolled as intrinsically superior to anything that the Western World has succeeded in producing.
Apparent antagonism of caste and Nationality.
If then the régime of cast, with all that it implies, is likely to survive for an indefinite period in India, what influence may it be expected to have over the growth of the modern idea of an Indian nationality? At first sight the two things appear to be antagonistic and incompatible: the principle of separation conflicts with the principle of consolidation. This, indeed, seems to be the deliberate opinion of two competent Indian critics. The disordered state of things arising from particularism in India was vividly described a few months ago by an advanced Bengali politician in a letter to a Calcutta newspaper: “We must not forget that India is not yet a nation; we must not forget that it is a congeries of races, which are not always friendly to each other: we must not forget the ancient hate, the ancient prejudice, the ancient clashing of castes and creeds which still hold India under their vice-like grip.”* A serious student of social problems in India, who stands aloof from politics, and approaches the subject of reform from the firmer ground of religion and philosophy, writes in an equally despondent tone. After referring to the high ideals of public and private life that prevailed in ancient India, he goes on to say :—" Truth (satya) and duty (dharma), the good old rule of not doing to others what was disagreeable to one’s own self, was held up as the ideal by the sages of those times, and many tried to live it. And it is because we have lost that ideal, that we present the spectacle of a people rent asunder by mutual dissensions, divided into thousands of castes and sub-castes, sects and sub-sects, with all spirit of nationality crushed out, weak in body and mind and slaves of circumstances."† Yet clearly Sir Henry Cotton and Babu Guru Prasād Sen do not regard the matter in the same light as the most recent observers on the spot. For both of them look forward with enthusiasm to the birth of an Indian nation; and the latter, while asserting with some emphasis that “there was no Indian nation at the date of Vikramāditya, or at any period of past Indian history,” goes on to quote with approval Comte’s reference to caste as “a necessary preparation” for the wider sentiment of patriotism. Sir Henry Cotton‡ dips even further into the future, and does not hesitate to sketch, in terms which recall the seventh book of the Mahābhārata, the main outlines of the political organization in which the national spirit will find its appropriate embodiment and expression. “What is required,” he says, “in the absence of an emasculating foreign army, is an organization of small States, each with a prince at its head, and a small body of patrician aristocracy interposing between him and the lower orders of working-men. For such an arrangement the country appears to be eminently adapted; the United States of India should be bound together by means of some political organization other than the colonial supremacy of England. The basis of internal order is to be found in the recognition of a patriciate accustomed by hereditary associations to control and lead,"—in other words a Council of Nobles.
Caste and Monarchy.
In an interesting essay in the Empire Review for September, 1907, Mr. A. M. T. Jackson has shown how the theory of the traditional Hindu Kingship—the political ideal which the genius of the warrior Sivaji sought to revive and which the intriguing spirit of the Brāhman Peshwas effectually shattered—was rooted in caste. At the head of it stands the King, the one absolute and responsible ruler, uniting in his own person all legislative, judicial, and executive functions, but assisted in their exercise by a purely advisory Council consisting of members appointed by himself in certain proportions from among the leading castes. Subject to the orders of the King, whose duty it is to enforce the rules of the various castes, “each of the functions required in a civilised community is discharged by a separate section of the people. The worship of the gods is the business of one caste, banking of another, shoe-making of another, and so on. By analogy the business of government is also assigned to one particular section, instead of being the common business of all as it is usually held to be in Europe. In India, this arrangement reacted upon the body politic in two ways. Firstly, the exclusion of most of the castes from politics left little room for the growth of feelings of common interest and public spirit; secondly, the efficiency of the governing section became of immense importance. Only if this section were strong could it perform its function of keeping each caste to its proper duties, and thereby combine the parts into an organic whole; while if it were weak, society would fall apart into disconnected atoms. Anarchy is the peculiar peril of a society that is organized on the basis of caste, and the dread of anarchy leads to monarchy as the strongest defence against it. Indian thinkers were well aware of the weakness of divided counsels, holding that one person should be appointed to one task, and not two or three. ‘It is always seen that several persons, if set to one task, disagree with one another.’”*
Caste and democracy.
Under the rule of the model King depicted in the Mahābhārata, of whom it is written that “he should always have the rod of chastisement uplifted in his hands,” the forces of caste were kept under proper control, and the system was prevented from degenerating into an organized tyranny. Monarchy seems to have guarded against this danger; would a democracy of the modern type be able to do the same? In considering how such a democracy would work in India, it must not be forgotten that caste would provide the party in power, the party that had spoils to divide, with what Americans call a “machine” surpassing in efficiency the wildest dream of the most ingenious wire-puller. It already possesses a ready-made system of standing caucuses each under the control of a “boss” or a committee of “bosses.” Once organized for political purposes, it could whip up voters en masse and could secure the adoption of any conceivable ticket. Men would be compelled to vote solid by penalties compared with which the Papal interdict that drove an Emperor barefoot to Canossa was a clumsy and ineffectual instrument. In a society where every one is peculiarly dependent on his neighbours, the recalcitrant voter would speedily find himself cut off not merely from the amenities, but also from the barest necessaries of life. No one would eat with him, drink with him, smoke with him, or sell him food; the barber would not shave him; the washerman would decline to wash his clothes; the Brāhman would deny him the offices of religion; no man would marry his daughter; and the attendants of the dead would refuse him the accustomed funeral rites. These are some of the blessings which popular government, controlled and directed by caste organization, would confer upon the subjects committed to its charge. Whatever future centuries may have in store for the people of India it may be hoped that they will be spared the misfortune of government by social ostracism.
Caste and nationality.
The discussion of speculative constitutions is a futile pursuit. But the relation between caste and nationality, between the idea of a rigidly exclusive matrimonial group and the idea, whether realized or not, of a wider community embracing many such groups—has taken rudimentary shape in India before now and may yet make itself felt on a larger scale. If what might have been the germ of a nation can shrink into a caste, as we have seen in the case of the Marāthas and the Newārs, may not the converse process be possible and a number of castes, without sacrificing their individual characteristics, draw together into that larger aggregate which we call a nationality? For the answer to this question no antecedent experience can be appealed to, since the institution of caste is peculiar to India, and the historical causes by which certain Teutonic tribes (which under different conditions might have hardened into castes) were converted into nations can hardly be expected to repeat themselves here at the present day. It seems of interest, however, to attempt to determine to what extent the continuance of caste is in itself favourable or adverse to the growth of a consciousness of common nationality among the people of India.
The factors of nationality.
In the first place, let us endeavour to make clear what is meant by nationality. This abstract term, originally denoting the fact of belonging to a particular nation (as we speak of the “nationality” of a ship), has within the last fifty years acquired a concrete meaning implied rather than expressed in such phrases as “oppressed nationalities.” The standard literature of the subject approaches the question from the European standpoint, and the development of the idea of nationality in Asia has as yet received no exhaustive treatment. As the word is ordinarily used, it seems to imply that the persons composing a nationality are keenly conscious, and may even be passionately convinced, that they are closely bound together by the tie of common interests and ideals, that in a special and intimate way they belong to one another, and that the moral force and enthusiasm by which their sentiment of unity is inspired render it independent of the government or governments under which they may happen to live. This feeling of self-consciousness gives to a body of men a sort of personality, so that they become “a moral unity with a common thought.” The idea is not necessarily associated with democratic tendencies; it may equally arise from loyalty to a dynasty. Nor is it invariably directed towards consolidation; it can be seen at work as a disintegrating force which fastens upon a particular racial, linguistic or geographical group and seeks to detach it from the political system of which it forms part. When a homogeneous multitude of men, animated by this complex sentiment, are united under a single government expressing their common aspirations and carried on by themselves, they are no longer described as a nationality, but are recognized as a nation. Thus we speak of the Polish, Finnish and Bohemian nationalities, and of the Greek, German, and Italian nations. The factors which go to the making of a national consciousness are of somewhat indefinite character and have been variously described. The most precise enumeration of them is perhaps that given by Sidgwick in The Elements of Politics. He notices the following:—The belief in a common origin; the possession of a common language and literature; the pride that is felt in common historic traditions, in the memories of a common political history, and of common struggles against foreign foes; community of religion; community of social customs. The last factor is in India so closely associated with religion that it need not be specially considered.
Community of origin.
Belief in a common origin, frequently traced back to a mythical ancestry, figures largely in the inherited traditions of most European nations. Into the foundations of such beliefs it would be unkind to enquire too narrowly: in the nebulous domain of national sentiment a picturesque legend carries higher value than the most authentic historical documents. If people can succeed in persuading themselves that they come of the same stock, they will not thank any one for showing that their descent is extremely mixed, and that pure races exist only in theory. It may perhaps be argued that in these respects the general position in India is not altogether dissimilar to that in Europe, and that the diffusion of patriotic fiction may in either case be expected to bring about much the same result. But in India we have to reckon with the existence of a number of distinct physical types, the contrasts between which strike the most superficial observer; and these types not only occupy widely different stages of intellectual advancement and general culture, but are organized in a social system which tends to stereotype and perpetuate their hereditary or acquired characteristics. Can we look forward to a time when these antagonistic masses will be animated by the conviction of their common origin, and will sink their natural antipathies in the idea of a united nationality? Can we suppose, for example, that the Muhammadans will readily surrender their cherished tradition of descent from Arab and Moghul conquerors, that the Rājputs will claim kinship with the Bengalis, or that the millions of Dravidian and Mongoloid people will be recognized as owning the same parentage as the Brāhmans of Benares and Ajodhya? No student of ethnology will ignore the influence that has been exercised by fiction in forging imaginary affinities between people of very different origin, but in India this influence has hitherto been directed towards separation rather than consolidation, and even when that tendency has been reversed, an immense amount of leeway will still have to be made up.
Language.
There are at present no indications that the factor of language, which has done so much to promote national movements in Europe, is likely to play the same part in India. At the last Census of the Empire no less than 147 distinct languages were recorded, 22 of which were spoken by more than a million people.* The situation, therefore, so far as language is concerned, is even more complex and chaotic than it is in the Austrian dominions, where the Parliamentary oath may have to be administered in eight different languages. It is perhaps conceivable that one of the many dialects of Hindustani might in course of time become established as the vernacular of the whole of Northern India, though the linguistic jealousies of Hindus and Muhammadans as to the script and vocabulary of the language will not readily be appeased. But to suppose that the Dravidians of Southern India will ever abandon Tamil and Telugu in favour of some form of Indo-Aryan speech, or that the peasantry of Bengal and Orissa, Mahārāshtra and Gujarāt will change their characteristic languages and alphabets, requires almost as large an effort of the imagination as the dream that English itself may in the remote future become the lingua franca of the three hundred millions who inhabit the Indian Empire. Speculations of this kind pay but a sorry tribute to the vitality of the Indian vernaculars and the attractions of the valuable literature which they possess—a literature which appeals to the most intimate feelings of the people and is closely bound up with their religious beliefs and their social obligations. The day is far distant when the Rāmāyana of Tulsi Dās will lose its hold over the peasantry of Upper India; and when the hymns of Tukārām will cease to be household words in the Marātha country. Nor do the classical languages of India supply a bond of union which may form the basis of a common nationality. The tendencies of Sanskrit writings are hierarchical rather than national, while their contemplative and metaphysical tendencies are absolutely at variance with the actively militant spirit of the Arabic and Persian classics on which Indian Muhammadans are brought up. It is difficult to imagine any form of symbolical interpretation or intellectual compromise by which the quietist philosophy characteristic of the Hindu scriptures could be reconciled with the fiery dogmatism of the Koran, or to conceive how two races looking back to such widely different literatures could be brought to regard them as the common heritage of one united nationality. We can only conclude therefore that in India, so far as can be at present foreseen, the development of the national idea is not likely to derive much support from popular speech or learned tradition.
It is possible indeed—distant as the prospect now appears—that English may after all stand the best chance of becoming the national language of India. Its adoption would at any rate avoid the antipathies and antagonisms with which any Indian vernacular would have to contend. English is already the medium of communication for the upper classes, at any rate on certain subjects, all over India. As the men of the elder generation, who prefer the vernacular, die off, and English comes to be the language of the family as well as the language of public life, it may spread in Northern India as it has spread in the south and may extend to classes which are not now touched by it. This process would be greatly expedited, and at the same time the development of nationality promoted, if the modern “direct” method of teaching were introduced and colloquial English were taught to British Indian children as thoroughly as colloquial French is taught in Pondicherry and Chandernagore. There would then be less temptation to mix the two languages, taking the structure of the sentence from one and the vocabulary from the other. This, I believe, is more common in Upper India than in Madras. When such expressions as “āpnār theatricals bŏrŏ tedious hŏbe” can be heard in the best Indian society, one feels that those who use them are hardly on the right road to a real command of either language.
Political history.
We may look back in vain through India’s stormy past for memories of a common political history and common struggles against foreign foes. Wave after wave of conquest or armed occupation has swept over the face of the country, but at no time were the invaders confronted with resistance organized on a national basis or inspired by patriotic enthusiasm. If here and there a local chieftain fought for independence, as Porus opposed Alexander and Prithirāj resisted Muhammad Ghori, his nearest rivals hastened to offer their swords to the foreign enemy. Tribal jealousies, dynastic intrigues, internal disunion combined to create a political vacuum which the first comer who knew his own mind was irresistibly impelled to fill. Even the Marātha confederacy, which to some may have seemed stable enough to form the nucleus of a national dominion, was broken up by the personal disputes which arose among its leaders. The Sikh league, held together for a time by the masterful personality of Ranjit Singh, began to fall to pieces at his death. Illustrations might be multiplied without limit, but it is an unwelcome task to dwell upon a picture of general discord and confusion. The facts are beyond dispute, and they point to the inevitable conclusion that national sentiment in India can derive no encouragement from the study of Indian history.
Religion.
In the series of lectures published under the title, “The Expansion of England,” the late Sir John Seeley speaks of religion as “the strongest and most important of the elements which go to constitute nationality,” and throws out the idea that Hinduism may prove to be the germ from which that sentiment may be developed in India. He then draws attention to the failure of the Hindus to organize a national resistance to the advance of the Muhammadan invaders, and of the Marātha confederacy, which he describes as “an organization of plunder,” to inspire Hinduism with the spirit of active patriotism. There he leaves the subject, after a passing glance at the “facile comprehensiveness of Hinduism” which in his judgment “has enfeebled it as a uniting principle,” and rendered it incapable of generating true national feeling. It may be admitted that the flame of patriotic enthusiasm will not readily arise from the cold grey ashes of philosophic compromise, and that before Hinduism can inspire an active sentiment of nationality, it will have to undergo a good deal of stiffening and consolidation. The Ārya Samāj seems to be striking out a path which may lead in this direction, but the tangled jungle of Hinduism bristles with obstacles, and the way is long. Meanwhile, it is curious to observe that Sir John Seeley’s forecast leaves Islam entirely out of account, though in an earlier lecture he dwells on the fact that the population of India is “divided between Brāhmanism and Muhammadanism.” His general proposition as to the influence of religion upon nationality seems, moreover, to lose sight of the historical fact that while community of religion strengthens and consolidates national sentiment, religious differences create distinct types within a nation and tend to perpetuate separate and antagonistic interests. This difficulty has not escaped the observation of Sir Henry Cotton, who rightly points out that “it is impossible to be blind to the general character of the relations between Hindus and Muhammadans; to the jealousy which exists and manifests itself so frequently, even under British rule, in local outbursts of popular fanaticism; to the kine-killing riots and to the religious friction which occasionally accompanies the celebration of the Ram Lila or the Bakr Id or the Muharram.”* Sir Theodore Morison† approaches the question from a different point of view. Writing of the educated Muhammadans, he says :—” The possibility of fusion with the Hindus, and the creation by this fusion of an Indian nationality, does not commend itself to Muhammadan sentiment. The idea has been brought forward only to be flouted; the pride of Muhammadans revolts at such a sacrifice of their individuality." But in the same article he seems to admit the possibility of the conception of territorial nationality, irrespective of race or creed, taking hold of the Indian Muhammadans and bringing them into the same political fold with the Hindus. In the case of the most advanced Muhammadans such a rapprochement is perhaps conceivable. But even with them it will take a long time to effect, and great changes of religious feeling and practice will have to take place before they can induce the main body of their co-religionists to follow their lead. The problem is a difficult one. As long as Muhammadans are accustomed to kill for food or sacrifice the animal deemed sacred by the Hindus, occasions for deadly strife are bound to arise when the passion of religious animosity will overpower the weaker sentiment of common nationality.
Intermarriage.
It will be observed that the right of free intermarriage, the jus connubii which played so large a part in the growth and progress of the Roman Empire, finds no place in Sidgwick’s catalogue of the essential characteristics of nationality. No one writing in Europe would imagine that people who were capable of conceiving the idea of national unity had not long ago passed the stage at which restrictions on intermarriage could form part of their code of social custom. Yet this, which may be called the physiological aspect of the question, is one of the first points that strike an observer in India. It was referred to, as long ago as 1889, by Sir Comer Petheram, Chief Justice of Bengal, in an address delivered by him as Vice-Chancellor of the Calcutta University :—
" Above all," he said, " it should be borne in mind by those who aspire to lead the people of this country into the untried regions of political life, that all the recognized nations of the world have been produced by the freest possible intermingling and fusing of the different race stocks inhabiting a common territory. The horde, the tribe, the caste, the clan, all the smaller separate and often warring groups characteristic of the earlier stages of civilization, must, it would seem, be welded together by a process of unrestricted crossing before a nation can be produced. Can we suppose that Germany would ever have arrived at her present greatness, or would indeed have come to be a nation at all, if the numerous tribes mentioned by Tacitus, or the three hundred petty princedoms of last century, had been stereotyped and their social fusion rendered impossible by a system forbidding intermarriage between the members of different tribes or the inhabitants of different jurisdictions? If the tribe in Germany had, as in India, developed into the caste, would German unity ever have been heard of? Everywhere in history we see the same contest going forward between the earlier, the more barbarous instinct of separation, and the modern civilizing tendency towards unity, but we can point to no instance where the former principle, the principle of disunion and isolation, has succeeded in producing anything resembling a nation. History, it may be said, abounds in surprises, but I do not believe that what has happened nowhere else is likely to happen in India in the present generation."
The view there stated is borne out by Rivier’s * observation.
“Ou ne peut guère douter que ce ne soit en grande partie aux mélanges infinis qui, durant des siècles, ont pétri et trituré les Européens d’aujourd’hui, qu’est du la suprématie mondiale actuelle de notre continent.”
So long as a regime of caste persists, it is difficult to see how the sentiment of unity and solidarity can penetrate and inspire all classes of the community, from the highest to the lowest, in the manner that it has done in Japan where, if true caste ever existed, restrictions on intermarriage have long ago disappeared. It may be said on the other hand that the caste system itself, with its singularly perfect communal organization, is a machinery admirably fitted for the diffusion of new ideas; that castes may in course of time group themselves into classes representing the different strata of society; and that India may thus attain, by the agency of these indigenous corporations, the results which have been arrived at elsewhere through the fusion of individual types. The problem is a novel one, but so are the conditions which give rise to it, and the ferment of new ideas acting upon ancient institutions may bring about a solution the nature of which cannot now be foreseen.
The basis of Indian nationality.
We have seen that the factors which in other countries are regarded as essential to the growth of national sentiment either do not exist at all in India, or tend to produce separation rather than cohesion. We have also observed that the influence of caste seems at first sight to favour particularist rather than nationalist tendencies. Are we then to conclude that the conception of an Indian nationality rests upon no substantial or even intelligible basis, and may be brushed aside as a figment of the prolific oriental imagination stimulated by its recent contact with Western thought? Such a conclusion would, I think, be premature. Indian national sentiment is, indeed, at present in rather a fluid condition, but its existence within a certain section of the community can hardly be denied, and the causes which have led to its development are plainly discernible. They may be said to be two in number:—
(1) The consciousness of a certain community of intellectual pursuits and aspirations, derived from the common study of the history and literature of England, and from the common use, for certain special purposes, of the English language in addition to a provincial vernacular.
(2) The consciousness of being united and drawn together by living under a single government, by taking part in the administration of a common system of laws, and by sharing in the material benefits of a common civilization.
Has it any parallel in history?
Here one naturally looks for some instance in history of a genuine nationality arising from the partial adoption of a foreign language and the partial assimilation of a few foreign institutions. Within the modern period the search for such a parallel would be fruitless. The modern theory of nationality figured prominently among the original doctrines of the French Revolution, but in the hands of Napoleon it speedily became an instrument of territorial aggrandisement, and it can hardly be said to have attained general recognition in Europe before about 1830. Long before that time all the peoples affected by it had formed their own languages, had made their own history, and had developed characteristic institutions to which they were passionately attached. Even the oppressed nationalities, whom other powers were trying to absorb, cherished these feelings in unabated strength. Going back some centuries earlier it may perhaps be thought that the common use of Latin by the learned classes of Europe as a medium of communication on political and literary subjects offers a resemblance to the common use of English by the educated class in India. But the survival of Latin as the language of diplomacy, science and scholarship down to the middle of the 18th century did no more towards developing any consciousness of common nationality among Europeans as such than the remotely analogous fact that under the rule of the Moghuls in India Hindu officials were in the habit of addressing their conquerors and of transacting public business in Persian. In neither case did the practice of the learned give rise to any community of political sentiment either among them or among the people at large.
The example of Gaul.
If we travel still further back in the history of Europe an approach to a precedent of the kind we are in search of seems at first sight to be furnished by the intellectual and social development of Gaul under Roman rule. In B.C. 38 when Julius Cæsar, yielding to the entreaties of the Gauls for aid against the Helvetii, entered upon the shortest of Roman wars,* he found the country between the Rhine and the Pyrenees in the possession of about eighty independent political communities (Civitates). These were united by no federal tie; they recognized no superior authority; they had not risen to the idea of a common country or a national life; and their local patriotism was bounded by their own little territories, and inspired by hatred of their immediate neighbours. Most of them were in form aristocratic republics governed by Senates in which the educated classes had a decided preponderance. But they were torn by internal factions ever ready to call in a foreign ally, and were in constant danger of being overthrown by any ambitious chief who was rich enough to gather round himself a small army of rudely equipped retainers Independent Gaul was a chaos of disorderly local jealousies aggravated by perpetual war. When the Romans appeared on the scene, some of the States hastened to make terms; others offered a fitful and ineffectual resistance under leaders whose real object was to set up tyrannies of their own. With an army consisting mainly of Gallic levies, drilled and disciplined on the Roman system and stiffened by a few Italian legions, Cæsar subdued the country in five campaigns, and substituted a single Roman supremacy for a confused medley of local supremacies. On the establishment of the pax Romana an era of civilization commenced which resulted in the development of political and religious unity.
The influence of language was the chief factor in the change. From the first century onwards all the inscriptions that have been discovered, whether dedications to the gods, family epitaphs, or municipal decrees are without exception in Latin.
Among the common people the ancient Celtic dialect seems to have survived down to the middle of the third century and then to have died out so completely that in the fifth century, when Gaul was converted to Christianity by Latin-speaking missionaries, no trace of the original language remained.* As Coulanges observes, when two peoples are in contact, it is not always the less numerous that gives up its language; it is rather the one that has the most need of the other. Here the need was all on the side of the Gauls. Their own language was poor and was unable to express the new ideas that came in with advancing civilization. They had no literature and no art of their own. They borrowed both from Roman sources and they founded schools all over Gaul to teach poetry, rhetoric, mathematics, the entire harmony of studies which the Latins called humanity. Religion, law, social usage followed in the same path, and in all departments of life Gallic culture perished and Latin culture took its place. Yet the result of this process of assimilation was not to produce an independent Gallic nationality, but to merge the people of Gaul in the Roman nation. The Gauls ceased to be Gauls in any but a geographical sense and became Romans with a Gallic tinge. The process is a remarkable one, and many of its incidents seem almost to have repeated themselves in the history of India. But it throws no direct light on the problems connected with the idea of an Indian nationality.
The example of Japan.
It is in no way surprising that the imagination of the Indian nationalists should have been deeply touched by the rise of Japan, or even that some of the more ardent spirits among them should have formed the opinion that if forty years of contact with European thought could make a nation of the Japanese, more than a century of similar experience ought to have done the same for the people of India. Here there seems to be some misconception of the facts. Japan has many lessons for the Indians of to-day, but when they begin to study her history they will assuredly not learn from it that Japanese nationalism was the work of two generations, or that it owed anything at all to foreign culture or influence. Centuries before Commodore Perry landed in Yokohama the various race elements out of which the Japanese people have been formed, had been crushed together and consolidated by the sternest discipline that any nation has ever undergone. In all the stages of this process religion was the dominant influence. Shinto or “The way of the gods,” a form of Animism coloured and idealized by the belief that the dead are ever present with the living and take an unseen but active share in the fortunes of their descendants, lent itself to a social regime of extraordinary stringency. Under the rule of the dead no man could call his soul his own. His actions, his words, his demeanour, his thoughts, his emotions were perpetually watched by a ghostly company of ancestors, who were grieved at any wrong conduct and visited it on the family at large. Thus the rights of the dead came to be enforced by the living, and formed the basis of a domestic despotism of the most searching kind. Even the quality of a smile was defined by inviolable convention, and to smile at a superior so broadly as to show the back teeth was reckoned as a mortal offence.
The minute regulations promulgated in 681 A.D. by the Emperor Temmu, and expanded, a thousand years later, by the great Shogun Iyéyasu, afford many illustrations of the coercion employed. “Every member of a Kumi,”* says one of these, “must carefully watch the conduct of his fellow members. If any one violates these regulations without due excuse, he is to be punished; and his Kumi will also be held responsible.” Behind the Kumi was the clan, then came the community, then the tribe—a hierarchy of groups, ruled by the “Heavenly Sovereign,” the divinely incarnate Mikado, and all working together to suppress independent personality and to produce a uniform type of character for the service of the nation. The ordinances cover every incident of life from marriage to the material or cut of a dress, or the value of a birthday present to a child. They lay infinite stress on obedience to parents and superiors, respect for elders, faithful service to masters, and friendly feelings towards all members of the community. Intrigue, party spirit, the formation of cliques, competition for leadership, appeals to the passions of the ignorant—in short, all forms of political selfishness are condemned in scathing terms. The patriot must put aside personal vanity and may not play for his own hand. Breaches of the rules were punished by social ostracism, by flogging, by torture, and in the last resort by banishment for life or for a term of years. In old Japan the banished man was dead to human society. Even the outcast classes would not receive him; without permission he could not become a Buddhist monk; and the last resource of selling himself as a slave was withdrawn from him by the later Shoguns. The religion of loyalty could make no terms with the rebel or the renegade. It demanded absolute submission as the first condition of national unity.
The centuries of coercion which the Japanese passed through produced in them a superb heredity, moulded by discipline and instinct with loyalty. When the new era opened and the Mikado resumed his temporal power, he found ready to his hand a nation that moved like one man, and was inspired through all its ranks with the single sentiment of devotion to the country and to the ever-present ancestors of the race. The world is still wondering at the achievements of the last fifty years. But these were rendered possible by the training of the ages that had gone before. Japanese nationalism did not originate in the theoretical sentiment of a literate class which may or may not work down to the lower strata of society. It is rooted in the popular religion and bound up with the life of the race. To my mind the most striking among the many evidences of the diffusion of the spirit of unity in Japan is to be found in the extraordinary secrecy maintained during the war with Russia. The correspondents of foreign papers, ready to pay any price for news, saw one Division after another vanish into space, but no foreigner could find out where the troops embarked, where they would land, or what was their ultimate destination. At a time when the issue of the contest hung upon the command of the sea two great battleships were lost by misadventure, and the disaster was concealed until its disclosure could no longer imperil the national existence. These things were known to thousands, but the secret was safe, because all classes were inspired by the passionate enthusiasm and self-devotion which the Shinto religion has developed into an instinct, so that the low-born coolie is as fine a patriot as the Samurai of ancient descent. When India can rise to these heights of discipline and self-control, India may rival Japan. But those who cherish that lofty ideal must bear in mind that in the region of evolution there is no such thing as a short cut.
The future of Indian nationalism.
Having brought the enquiry to this point and having attempted to show what factors have and what have not contributed to the growth of national sentiment in India, one is left with the uncomfortable feeling that one has by no means got to the root of the matter. The future of Analysis has its limits and a people, like an Indian Nationalism. individual, is something more than a bundle of tendencies. The mysterious thing called personality, the equally mysterious thing called national character, has in either case to be reckoned with. Beneath the manifold diversity of physical and social type, language, custom and religion which strikes the observer in India, there can still be discerned, as Mr. Yusuf Ali has pointed out, a certain “underlying uniformity of life from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin.” There is in fact an Indian cha- racter, a general Indian personality, which we cannot resolve into its component elements. How is this character to be inspired and transfused by that consciousness of common interests and ideals which is the predominant feature of the sentiment of nationality? The question admits of being answered either on idealist or on evolutionary lines—in the light of Indian theory or of European or Japanese experience. It may be said on the one hand that the idea of nationality is in itself nothing more than an impalpable mental attitude, a sub- jective conviction which may subsist independently of any objective reality, a fine flower of sentiment, springing from an unknown germ and nourished on Maya or illusion. But once planted on Indian soil it may spread far and wide as its seeds are blown hither and thither by the breath of popular imagina- tion. We have seen how the legend of the four original castes, evolved in the active brain of some systematizing pandit, has filtered downwards, has taken hold of the mind of the people, and has become almost an article of faith with the general body of Hindus. No one cares to enquire whether it rests on any basis of fact, yet it holds its ground, it gains constantly wider currency, and it undoubtedly does in a way influence practice in matters of social usage. It is conceivable that the idea of nationality may run a similar course, that it may possess the mind of the upper classes and may be diffused thence through wider circles until it reaches the rank and file of the Indian people. The process will take time, and even when it is com- pleted, the result will be wanting in substance and vitality. If on the other hand we look to the history of Europe, and more especially to the history of Japan, we shall see that wherever genuine nationalities have arisen, they have been the product of character and circumstances—common character and common experience acting and reacting on each other through a long period of time. There is no doubt that the common character exists in India, if only in the rather shadowy and undeveloped form in which Mr. Yusuf Ali depicts it. It has still to undergo the common experience necessary to mould it into national character. This apprenticeship, if it is to be of any real effect, must be based upon facts, not upon fancies, and must extend to the masses of the people. A mere top-dressing of idealism will not make a nationality. How then are the people to be reached? Japan supplies the answer—by the development of indigenous beliefs and institutions. The vast majority of the people of India are as yet untouched by the idea of nationality. This cannot be impressed upon them through their own vernaculars, the influence of which would make for separatism rather than for unity. Nor can they be reached through English, at least not for many generations. But they might be drawn together by the common interests which would be created by a genuine form of popular self-government. This should be built up from the bottom on the basis of two indigenous institutions—the village community and the village council—the common property of the Aryan people both in Europe and in India. Reconstruction on these lines offers the best prospect of realizing the national ideal, and of controlling the separatist tendencies of caste. It may be that in the first instance the process will produce not an Indian nationality, but a number of provincial nationalities. But history shows this to be the natural course of evolution. Everywhere particularism has come first, just as crystallisation takes place by centres, and nationalities have been formed by the agglomeration of the particularist units into a larger whole.
Let us now try to draw together the threads of this discussion. The standard elements of nationality either do not exist in India or make for diversity rather than uniformity. Caste in particular, an institution peculiar to India, seems at first sight to be absolutely incompatible with the idea of nationality, but the history of the Marāthas suggests that a caste or a group of castes might harden into a nation, and that the caste organization itself might be employed with effect to bring about such a consummation. The factors of nationality in India are two—the common use of the English language for certain purposes and the common employment of Indians in English administration. At present these factors affect only a limited group of persons, among whom the Muhammadans have hitherto stood rather aloof. The masses have not been affected at all. They cannot be reached through language, but they might be reached through the agency of self-governing institutions. The orderly development of the indigenous germs of such institutions ought to be the immediate object of the Indian nationalists. In this direction and, I believe, in this direction alone, is it possible to advance towards real political representation. Progress will in any case be slow, but nothing will retard it more certainly than the “impatient idealism” which insists upon beginning at the wrong end.
Footnotes
- New India, p. 260.
^* New India, pp. 225 and 252.
† Presidential address to National Indian Congress, 1905.
- Hon. Babu Bhupendra Nath Basu of the Bengal Legislative Council.—Statesman, 28th May, 1907.
† Hinduism: Ancient and Modern, by Rai Bahadur Lala Baij Nath, B.A., District and Sessions Judge, Ghazipur. New edition, 1905, p. 104.
‡ New India, p. 227.
- New India, p. 228.
† Quarterly Review, April 1906.
- Rivier : Principes du Droit des Gens.
- Here I follow Coulanges, La Gaule Romaine. Mommsen, in The Provinces of the Roman Empire, takes a different view of the scanty evidence available.