New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century | Page 5

is that of ecstatic
whole-hearted devotion; the Briton reverences as the religious mood a
quiet staying intensity in noble endurance or effort.
[Sidenote: Testimony to the change in ideas]
The nineteenth century has witnessed a great transition in ideas and a
great alteration in the social and political and religious standpoints. It is
easy to find manifold witness to the fact from all parts of India. The
biographer of the modern in ideas. Indian reformer, Malabari, a
Parsee[3] writing of a Parsee, and representing Western India, is
impressed by the singular fate that has destined the far-away British to
affect India and her ideals so profoundly. Crossing to the east side of
India, we seek a trustworthy witness. The well-known reformer,
Keshub Chunder Sen, a Bengali, and representative therefore of Eastern
India, declares in a lecture published in 1883: "Ever since the
introduction of British power into India there has been going on a
constant upheaval and development of the native mind,... whether we
look at the mighty political changes which have been wrought by that ...
wonderful administrative machinery which the British Government has
set in motion, or whether we analyse those deep national movements of
social and moral reform which are being carried on by native reformers
and patriots." All Indian current opinion is unanimous with the Parsee
and the Bengali that a great movement is in progress. The drift from the
old moorings is a constant theme of discourse. Let Sir Alfred Lyall,
once head of the United Provinces, speak for the most competent
European observers. "There may be grounds for anticipating," he says,
"that a solid universal peace and the impetus given by Europe must

together cause such rapid intellectual expansion that India will now be
carried swiftly through phases which have occupied long stages in the
lifetime of other nations."[4] In another essay, in a more positive mood,
he writes of British responsibility for "great non-Christian populations
[in India] whose religious ideas and institutions are being rapidly
transformed by English law and morality."[5] In a third passage he
even prophesies rashly: "The end of simple paganism is not far distant
in India."
Sir George Bird wood has also had a long Indian career, and no one
suspects him of pro-British bias--rather the reverse. Yet we find him
writing to the Times in 1895 about one of the Indian provinces, as
follows: "The new Bengali language and literature," he says, "are the
direct products of our Law Courts, particularly the High Court at
Calcutta, of Mission schools and newspaper presses and Education
Departments, the agents which are everywhere, not in Bengal only,
giving if not absolute unity yet community in diversity to the peoples of
British India." The modern literature of Bengal, he goes on to say, is
Christian in its teaching; if not the Christianity of creed and dogma, yet
of the mind of Christ.
It is that transition in ideas, that alteration in social, political, and
religious standpoint which we are going to trace and illustrate.
CHAPTER II
INDIAN CONSERVATISM
"By the well where the bullocks go, Silent and blind and slow."
RUDYARD KIPLING.
[Sidenote: Indian conservatism.]
[Sidenote: Is mere inertia.]
But while acknowledging the potent influences at work, and accepting
these representative utterances, it may yet be asked by the

incredulous--What of the inherent conservatism, the proverbial tenacity
of India? Is there really any perceptible and significant change to record
as the outcome of the influences of the nineteenth century? Well, the
expression "Indian conservatism" is misleading. There is no Indian
conservatism in the sense of a philosophy of politics, of society, or of
religion. Indian conservatism--what is it? To some extent an idealising
of the past, the golden age of great law-givers and philosophers and
saints. But very much more--mere inertia and torpidity in mind and
body, a reluctance to take stock of things, and an instinctive treading in
the old paths. "Via trita, via tuta." In the path from one Indian village to
another may often be observed an inexplicable deviation from the
beeline, and then a return to the line again. It is where in some past year
some dead animal or some offensive thing has fallen in the path and
lain there. Year after year, long after the cause has disappeared, the feet
of the villagers continue in that same deviating track. That is in perfect
keeping with India. Or--to permit ourselves to follow up another
natural sequence--things may quickly begin to fit in with the deviation.
Perhaps the first rainy season after the feet of the villagers had been
made to step aside, some plant was found in possession of the avoided
spot. India-like, its right of possession was unconsciously deferred to.
And then the year following, may be, one or other of the sacred fig
trees appeared behind the