Indian Unrest | Page 3

seas;
yet the historical antecedents of the Bengalees and Marathas are even
further apart. The Marathas were the leaders of revolt against the
Moghal Empire; they were formidable opponents to the rise of the
British power; their chiefs fought hard before yielding to British
authority. On the other hand, Lower Bengal belonged to a province that
had fallen away from the Moghal Empire, and which was transferred
from its Mahomedan Governor to a British General by the result of a
single battle at Plassey. The Bengalees took no part in the contest, and
they had very good reason for willing acquiescence in the change of
masters.
In a comparison, therefore, of the Marathas with the people of Bengal,
we have a remarkable instance of the production of similar effects from
causes very distinct and dissimilar. In the former case their present
unrest may be traced, in a large degree, to the memories of early
rulership and to warlike traditions. In the latter case there can be no
such recollections, military or political, for the country has had no
experience whatever of a state of war, since Lower Bengal is perhaps
the only considerable province of India which has enjoyed profound

peace during nearly 150 years. It is no paradox to suggest that this
prolonged tranquillity has had some share in stimulating the audacity of
Bengalee unrest, for the literary classes seem to have no clear notion
that the real game of revolutionary politics is necessarily rough and
dangerous--certain, moreover, to fail whenever the British Government
shall have resolved that it is being carried too far, and must end.
But it is beyond question that the promoters of disaffection on both
sides of India have been making strenuous exertions to enlist in the
movement the influence of Brahminism; and upon this point the book
rightly lays particular stress.
The position and privileges of the Brahmins are rightly compared to
those of the Levites; they are the depositories of orthodox tradition;
they preside over and hold (not exclusively) a monopoly for the
performance of the sacred rites and offices; and ritual in Hinduism, as
in most of the ancient religions, is the essential element; it is closely
connected with the rules of caste, which unite and divide innumerable
groups within the pale of Hinduism. And in India the peculiar
institution of caste, the strict regulation of social intercourse,
particularly in regard to inter-marriage and the sharing of food, prevails
to an extent quite unknown elsewhere in the world. The divisions of
caste have always operated to weaken the body politic in India, and
thus to facilitate foreign conquest; but, on the other hand, they have
opposed a stiff barrier to the invasion of foreign religions, to the fusion
of alien races with the Hindu people, and to any success in what may be
called national unification.
One can easily understand the formidable power invested by this
system in the Brahmins, and the enormous obstacles that it might raise
against the introduction of Western ideas, manners, and education.
Nevertheless we all know, and we have seen it with real satisfaction,
that the Brahmins, very much to the credit of their intelligence and
sagacity, have been forward in accepting the new learning, the
expansion of general knowledge, offered to them by English schools
and Universities; they have acquired our language, they have studied
our sciences; they are prominent in the professions of law and medicine,

which the English have created; they enter our civil services, they even
serve in the Indian Army. Yet their readiness to adopt secular culture
does not seem to have abated their religious authority, or to have
sensibly weakened their influence over the people at large. And indeed
the fact that the Brahmins, with others of the educated classes, should
have been able, for their own purposes, to appeal simultaneously to the
darkest superstitions of Hinduism and to extreme ideas of Western
democracy--to disregard caste rules personally and to stir up caste
prejudices among the masses--will not greatly surprise those who have
observed the extraordinary elasticity of practical Hinduism, the fictions
and anomalies which can be invented or tolerated at need. But the
beliefs and practices of popular Hinduism are obviously irreconcilable
with the principles of modern civilization; and the various indications
of a desire to reform and purify their ancient religion may be partly due
to the perception among educated Hindus that so contradictory a
position is ultimately untenable, that the incongruity between sacrifices
to the goddess Kali and high University degrees is too manifest.
The course and consequences of the measures taken by the British
Government to promote Western education in India has been
attentively studied by the author of this volume. It is a story of grave
political miscalculation, containing a lesson that has its significance for
other nations